Before I read this, I had thought of glamour as being essentially synonymous with glitz; some showy display designed for and appreciated by shallow people. Not "serious"; not for me. Postrel did a phenomenal job of showing me how wrong I was, articulating how universal the concept of glamour is and how it works, and really putting the lie to the idea that you can be somehow "above" fashion, style, or trends. She manages the neat trick of posing questions of taste without imposing questionable taste herself, and discusses what makes things attractive and desirable to people in an approachable and insightful way. Replete with plenty of examples from all aspects of life, the book gives you a fascinating way to analyze your own desires and sense of aesthetics. Perhaps even more importantly, it conclusively demonstrates that anyone who doubts that illusions are not only important but even necessary in their life is merely participating in an ever bigger illusion.

Glamour is a tricky concept to put words behind. While the effects of glamour are universal, quite often the specific objects that evoke it are unique to each person. Additionally, the process of recognizing glamour usually occurs on a pre-rational level, using the kind of emotional reactions often associated with hidden longings and personal worries. Glamour is not a specific object per se, but "a form of nonverbal rhetoric, which moves and persuades not through words but through images, concepts, and totems." This means that it's often confused with other, similar things, so that point about glamour being a form of rhetoric is crucial to understand how Postrel attempts to "distinguish glamour from style, celebrity, or fame; to establish the relationship between glamour and such associated phenomena as charisma, romance, spectacle, elegance, and sex appeal; and to identify the common elements uniting disparate versions of glamour across audiences and cultural contexts."

She backs up that lofty goal by covering the origins, operation, and evolution of glamour. Quite helpful are the chapter-length analyses of 14 different icons of glamour, each of which provokes some degree of fascination in most people: The Aviator, Smoking, The Princess, Wind Turbines, The Golden State, The Makeover, Wirelessness, The Superhero, The Window, Shanghai, The Horseman, The Gibson Girl, The Suntan, and The Striding Woman. While it's easy to say that any individual one of these icons is not your own personal cup of tea (The Striding Woman, an advertising motif evoking progress, self-advancement, and women's liberation, also brought to my mind the entirely unglamourous internet meme Women Laughing Alone With Salad), it's not really arguable that many, many people react to the idea of, say, California, with an almost mystical longing for what that state represents: sun, surf, youth, girls, Hollywood, etc. While it's possible and even expected for an icon to disappoint somewhat when confronted in the flesh ("Venice is glamorous, until the breeze off the Adriatic brings in the smell of rotting fish and raw sewage, at which point it is like Hoboken with better architecture", in one quote Postrel collects), it's the idea that matters. Flying the regular short-haul route between Cleveland and Indianapolis might not be quite the lifestyle that someone raised on Charles Lindbergh or Howard Hughes expected, but you still get to participate in the glamour of The Aviator.

This would seem to leave the charge open that glamour is essentially just advertising; some kind of lie that deceives more than it delivers. For many people an icon like The Superhero or The Princess is not glamorous but childish, a totem that immature people use to transparently project their own longings into a world where their limitations are absent. Well, sure, that's obviously true in one sense, but in another sense that's meaningless, because who doesn't have inspirational icons that are forever beyond them? A scientist could idolize Isaac Newton, a painter could idolize Rembrandt, a musician could idolize Van Zandt, a director could idolize Orson Welles, an actress could idolize Lucille Ball, a CEO could idolize Rockefeller, and so on - all of those figures are glamorous because they evoke strong passions, and even if a writer knows deep down that he'll probably never be Steinbeck, it's the idealized qualities of Steinbeck that helps him find essential meaning in his work.

We all need idols, along with their illusions, because "though felt to be true, these illusions are always known to be false." One can scoff at someone who's collected an unusually large amount of Star Trek memorabilia, but Star Trek is just an unusually good way of expressing the values of adventure, exploration, and social and technological progress, and who wants to scoff at those? Relatedly, Postrel has another good quote: "science fiction is to technology as romance novels are to marriage: a form of propaganda." Even people who like to scoff at romantic comedies would have to admit that there's something about the idea of two people finding each other they enjoy; they just need a more acceptable presentation mode to allow themself to accept its glamour. Romance (which Postrel does distinguish from glamour per se) wouldn't be such a vast industry if we all didn't share very similar longings for the happiness that the Right Person can bring you.

What about fashion? If there's anywhere to criticize glamour it would seem to be there, since fashion can change very rapidly, what's fashionable at any given time is almost arbitrary, and a primary component of fashion is often impressing other people. Shallow, right? Well, don't think about fashion as being about clothes themselves, think about it as being about what those clothes represent. A shirt's not just a shirt, it says something to other people about who you are, or who you would like to be seen as. Not caring about fashion might seem like you're above it all, but really it means that you're willing to be thought of as unfashionable, which is quite different. The most hard-headed utilitarian will admit that the right dress on a woman evokes quite different feelings than another does, or that dressing up for a special occasion brings a sense of being a different person above what a simple change of fabric should do. Fashion can be a game of status, an expression of personal taste, a way of demonstrating solidarity with a group, or a way of transforming yourself, and everyone identifies with all of those at different times. The parallels to art, music, literature, and so forth are clear: participating in fashionable activities with other people lets you participate in the glamour of popularity and being an insider. If you disagree, are you sure you aren't trying to play the glamorous part of the outsider? There's no escape!

Of course, to be glamorous, you can't be seen as trying to be glamorous; an essential component of glamour is sprezzatura, or "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". That criterion of illusory effortlessness is important, and helps distinguish glamour from romance. In Postrel's words, "romance does idealize reality - it omits the tedious, meaningless, and boring - but it heightens the glory of success by showing the struggle that produces it. Glamour is less narrative. It captures not a story but a scene: the dance, not the rehearsals; the still photo, not the film. Glamour and romance are closely related, but glamour is about being, not becoming. We experience the result, not the process." I think one of the main things that separates successful people from unsuccessful people is the willingness to do the unglamorous work process behind the scenes over a long period of time, in order to reap the rewards later on. Are the people most susceptible to glamour the least glamorous themselves? And in reverse, are the most glamorous people the ones who spend the least amount of time thinking about it? Hopefully knowledge of glamour is itself glamorous, or else this book is playing an awful trick on its readers.

Those questions are intimately related to the process of glamourization. How does something go from unglamorous to glamorous (suntans), or the reverse (smoking)? Does society as a whole select for glamour, which individuals then absorb in a René Girard-ish "imitative desire" process? Or is glamour in culture simply the aggregate of human choices, and certain things are considered glamorous only because others aren't? Glamour is a non-rivalrous quality, since being thought of as glamorous by one person doesn't prevent it from being thought of that way by another; quite the opposite for many things. But, while for some things glamour is additive, like the positive feedback loop that glamorous celebrities enjoy; for other things it's subtractive, as in the entire underground/punk/DIY subcultures devoted to rejecting what society tells them they should want. I think the answer is that it depends on the specific glamorous object, since popularity is a component of glamour for some things (it's no fun being The Princess if you don't have a court), while it's not for others (does your own version of The Window look out over an idyllic ranch or a crowded cityscape?). Even nuns are glamorous to the right person.

And after all, it is ultimately up to what you feel you need. As Postrel says, "the first precondition for glamour is the willingness to acknowledge discontent with one's current situation along with the ability to imagine a different, better self in different, better circumstances." That sounds about right: glamour is not fundamentally different from any other aspect of society that's driven both by general similarities (certain things are intriguing to just about everyone), and individual differences (each to their own taste). And as far as things gaining or losing lustre over time is concerned, "glamour inspires projection and longing; spectacle produces wonder and awe", so it's possible for some things to appear very glamorous in one era but not so glamorous in the next, while other things seem to remain timeless. The 1960s must be the most written-about decade in world history, even beyond the fact that we're still living in the era of the Baby Boomers, specifically because so many of the things produced in that era resonate with modern human longings better than what came before or since.

And to that end, I found the sections on modern glamour very interesting, although occasionally filled with some funny pretentious over-theorizing - apparently "modern, self-illusory hedonism" is different from old-school hedonism because it's about the anticipation of experiences and not the actual experiences, as if the ancients never made that same distinction between wanting and having, or between the idea of a thing and the thing itself. Glamorous concepts have been around as long as humanity, but the 1930s was when glamour came into its own as a commercial power. This introduces the distinction between things that were thought to be glamorous in the 1930s, and things from the 1930s which are still glamorous, like the Chrysler Building. Nothing gets old as fast as the future, which is why striking and glamorous science fiction often ages very poorly, and why marketing your product as "modern" or "contemporary" is almost guaranteed to get it laughed at a generation down the line (compare also the label "postmodern").

Economic development is the key to understanding modern glamour. Wealth makes glamour more affordable and available, which is good for everyone, but there are also more opportunities to be judged by other people, and countless glamorous products have become unglamorous simply because they got more affordable and hence less exclusive. Mystery is central to glamour, and so striking a balance between broad appeal while retaining just the right amount of distance is difficult in a world of consumer sovereignty. Will the number of universally glamorous icons decrease over time, as markets cater to individual tastes more precisely? Or are there other forces of social conformity at work? And, as always, openly attempting to seem wealthier than you are is definitely unglamorous to those who are actually wealthy: "Meanwhile, the contemporary reincarnations of the old forms of glamour - the gold, diamonds, cognac, champagne, and fancy cars found in countless hip-hop videos - strike the economically secure as hopelessly crass." I think Lorde had a hit song about that a few years ago....

As human beings, we all participate in illusions constantly, because fantasies are an integral part of consciousness. Glamour is such a fascinating subject because to even discuss it is to participate in its appeal, as you pursue this intriguing but mysterious concept, trying to understand the world and yourself better, but (predictably) being left with even more questions about your own wants and desires. This book is indispensable as a tool to understand why some things are so appealing, giving you a rational framework to understand your own irrational (but perfectly human) preferences, and also making you appreciate whole new swaths of human culture. This is best read in conjunction with other works that analyze trendiness or imitation, such as something by Duncan Watts or René Girard, but stands on its own quite well. Best of all, the book proves its own point by being inherently interesting when you mention it to other people. Postrel hit it out of the park, and anyone afraid of her inserting her own idiosyncratic libertarian political opinions will be pleasantly disappointed.

To digress a bit as a coda, one example of how this book helped me analyze glamour's effects on myself related to my hometown of Austin. Until the late 90s tech boom we were primarily a middle- to working-class town, without much of a noticeable class divide since the main draws in town were state government and the university, neither of which brought in a lot of money to locals (ironically, the fact that the rest of the state hates us might reduce local corruption by eliminating our ability to get pork projects). Without money, people find other ways to differentiate themselves, so a lot of that infamous "weirdness" stuff comes from the grad school aesthetic of old, vaguely run-down bungalows with decent but unrenowned restaurants, used/vintage clothing stores, offbeat artists, and cheap bars with talented but often unambitious musicians plucking away inside. Then our investment in technology paid real dividends, and now Austin has a lot of money, and hence nice houses, craft cocktails, world-class food, high-end fashion, trend-setting artists, and internationally famous music festivals.

That stuff's not bad; it's just different. I personally love the 80s/90s low-rent slacker oasis Austin I grew up in (in my mind a glamorous "city of smart, funny, creative individuals who don't care what the outside world thinks") and have mixed feelings about the 00s/10s high-rent tech hub Austin (to newcomers a glamorous "cool city on the cutting edge that the rest of the world admires"), but it's a mistake to think that the glamour of the former is "authentic" while the glamour of the latter isn't. Clearly I'm projecting my own vaguely narcissistic ideas of what the city "should" be onto a collection of buildings and roads. I want something about the city to reflect my childhood forever and maintain my almost spiritual sense of belonging. The fact that that can't really happen only makes that mythical Perfect Past Austin even more attractive! Whatever, I'm still going to hate on the Domain, because Austin was perfect right when I got here, and ruined right when you got here. ( )

I received "The Power of Glamour" as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

In "The Power of Glamour," Postrel explores visual culture as expressed in (and by) advertising, art, fashion, graphic design, film, status symbols, and celebrities. The presence and development of writing systems are what distinguishes "prehistory" from "history," but Postrel makes a compelling case that what we see--across time and place--can tell us just as much, if not more, than the written record. As a history buff, I loved exploring how conceptions of glamour have changed from premodern religious figures to celebrities from the golden age of cinema to 21st century superstars like Jay-Z.

One small quibble is the size of the book--it's a hardcover, but of a non-standard size, almost a small coffee table book, which isn't the most practical format for easy reading. That said, it's still an enjoyable, worthwhile, insightful read, a lot to process in a relatively small package.

Recommended. ( )