The Sociology of Taste

The roles of fashion and taste are central to our understanding of the social dynamics of modern consumer cultures. In this study on the aestheticization of social life, Jukka Gronow uses the insights of Veblen, Simmel and Huizinga among others to show how fashion operates as a form of play binding modern society together and allowing an equilibrium between the opposing forces of the individual and society. In the process, he draws on a rich range of examples and case studies ranging from the dominance of kitsch in late nineteenth century Europe to the shifting nature of luxury in the Soviet Union from the 1930s through to the growing influence of western ideas of the good life from the 1960s on to food scares and food fashion in the late twentieth century.