Apparently, good taste can now be delivered in two business days.
You just need the right handbag.
The right sunglasses.
The right coffee-table book.
A particular shade of butter yellow.
A vintage-looking watch that may or may not actually be vintage.
Something from The Row.
Something that looks like it's from The Row.
A pair of loafers.
A slightly oversized blazer.
And, depending on what side of the internet you're on, a kitchen filled with either aggressively beige ceramics or enough colorful glassware to suggest you've recently inherited a villa in Italy.
Follow the list closely enough and eventually, supposedly, you will have taste.
Except there's one small problem.
So will everyone else.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
When did having good taste become less about knowing what you like and more about knowing what to buy?
The Algorithm Has Excellent Taste
To be fair, the algorithm has introduced us to some beautiful things.
Beautiful hotels.
Beautiful homes.
Beautiful clothes.
Restaurants we'd never heard of.
Designers we wouldn't have discovered.
Tiny boutiques halfway across the world.
An obscure lamp that costs approximately the same as a used Honda Civic.
We have more access to inspiration than any generation before us.
But there is something strange about millions of us being "inspired" by exactly the same things.
We open Pinterest looking for personal style and somehow leave wanting the same living room.
We scroll TikTok looking for outfit inspiration and suddenly everyone owns the same shoe.
We save photographs of "timeless interiors" until our homes all begin looking like different rooms in the same extremely expensive hotel.
The algorithm doesn't necessarily tell us what to like.
It does something much more convincing.
It shows us something so many times that eventually we think we discovered it ourselves.
We Used to Collect Taste
Taste used to take time.
You saw something at your grandmother's house.
Found something strange at an antique store.
Bought a piece of art on vacation.
Kept a chair everyone else hated.
Inherited jewelry.
Discovered a designer.
Read a magazine.
Saw a movie and became obsessed with the costumes.
Walked into someone's home and couldn't stop thinking about the wallpaper.
Taste accumulated.
It wasn't downloaded.
It came from places we'd been, people we'd known and things we'd loved long before anyone told us they were cool.
That's why the most interesting homes don't look decorated.
They look collected.
And the most interesting people don't necessarily look fashionable.
They look like themselves.
The Uniform of Individuality
Fashion has always had trends.
That's part of the fun.
One decade gives us shoulder pads.
Another gives us low-rise jeans.
Eventually someone convinces us ballet flats are back and we all collectively pretend we didn't spend ten years insulting them.
Trends aren't the problem.
The strange part is how often we're now sold individuality as a package.
Want to look old money?
Here's the list.
Want to be a clean girl?
Here's the list.
Coastal grandmother?
List.
Quiet luxury?
List.
Eclectic?
Believe it or not, also a list.
Apparently even rebellion now has recommended products.
We aren't being asked, What do you like?
We're being asked, Which aesthetic would you like to purchase?
And there is something slightly depressing about turning an entire personality into twelve items in an online cart.
Expensive Doesn't Automatically Mean Interesting
Somewhere along the way, taste also became confused with price.
If the chair costs $8,000, surely it must be tasteful.
If the handbag is impossible to get, surely carrying it says something about us.
If the hotel costs $1,400 a night, surely the lobby must contain wisdom unavailable at the Marriott.
Luxury can be extraordinary.
Craftsmanship matters.
Materials matter.
Design matters.
History matters.
There are things worth spending money on.
But money can buy beautiful things.
It cannot arrange them for you.
It cannot tell you which ones belong in your life.
And it certainly cannot make you interesting.
Some of the chicest things I've ever seen have been completely impractical, slightly strange or worth almost nothing.
A handwritten recipe framed in a kitchen.
An old photograph tucked into a mirror.
A man's oversized sweater on someone it clearly wasn't made for.
A cheap glass bought on vacation because the restaurant served water in one just like it.
A beat-up leather bag that has been carried for fifteen years.
Taste isn't knowing which things are expensive.
It's knowing which things matter to you.
Maybe Good Taste Requires a Few Bad Decisions
This is the part nobody talks about.
Developing taste requires occasionally getting it wrong.
You have to paint the room the color you eventually hate.
Buy the strange jacket.
Cut your hair.
Wear something questionable.
Mix two things that supposedly don't go together.
Buy the art before you know where you're going to put it.
Try the trend and realize you look ridiculous.
Because if you're constantly trying to make the "correct" choice, you're not developing taste.
You're following instructions.
Personal style requires experimentation.
And experimentation requires the possibility of embarrassment.
Every genuinely stylish person has photographs they would prefer we never see.
That's how this works.
Stop Asking If It's Timeless
I think we've become slightly obsessed with timelessness.
Is this bag timeless?
Is this sofa timeless?
Is this coat timeless?
Will I still love this in ten years?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
You might not even like the same music in ten years.
Why are we demanding that a side table survive every future version of our personality?
There are things worth investing in.
But there should also be things we bought because they delighted us at 31.
Things that belonged specifically to the house we lived in then.
The city we were visiting.
The person we were dating.
The version of ourselves who suddenly decided red was our color.
Our lives aren't museums.
They're allowed to change.
Buy the Weird Thing
Maybe that's my new rule.
Not literally every weird thing.
We would all go bankrupt.
But occasionally, when you're choosing between the thing everyone agrees is tasteful and the thing you can't stop thinking about—
choose the second one.
Buy the lamp that's slightly ridiculous.
Wear the enormous earrings.
Hang the art too low if you like it there.
Mix silver and gold.
Keep your grandmother's chair.
Wear the trend after it's supposedly over.
Buy something while traveling without checking whether it fits your "aesthetic."
Let your home contain evidence that actual people live there.
Let your closet contradict itself.
Let yourself like things before finding out whether you're supposed to.
Because maybe good taste isn't about having all the right things.
Maybe it's about becoming confident enough to choose the wrong ones.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
If everyone is shopping from the same list, isn't the most tasteful thing we can do simply cross a few things off?
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