the democratization of good taste
me going to war on ugly
I’ve been thinking about how to write a little essay on this topic in a way that you haven’t seen before. I don’t want to pretend that this topic hasn’t been typed out endlessly over decades. But hoping I can provide another perspective, as I always try to do.
It’s no secret that everything around is ugly. I mean heinously ugly. We’ve resorted to finding beauty in trivial little things, like latte art (!), to comfort us from the hideous world around us.
But while I love to complain, I don’t want this essay to remind you that color is being stripped from our world, and modern architecture continues to prioritize engineering feats to avoid the real “risk” these days: making something objectively beautiful.
Instead, I’d like to provide a guide for rebuilding taste and beauty in the present. When AI inevitably turns our brains to dust, let this be a resource when we want to regain our taste and discernment.
BUT FIRST: MY STORY
As a young girl, hating ugly things was my cross to bear. A Honda element. A modern white box newly constructed. Chacos. Unblended highlights. The list goes on. I dreamed about being a First Lady and making my cause “the War on the Ugly”. No more platform Crocs! No more LED lighting!!! No more above ground telephone lines!!! Something about it all made me uneasy, like my brain is searching for harmony that doesn’t exist.
So of course, I’ve never let go of that desire and it has informed my worldview. It’s not until recently I’ve wondered: why shouldn’t beauty and taste be a priority? Regardless of social class. We *shan’t* forego beauty for function, but understand it as a critical function of the human experience.
SO YEA, EVERYTHING IS REALLY UGLY
It’s not just architecture. It’s interiors, it’s fashion, it’s art. And while there are people in these fields that are producing beauty, most of it looks like AI slop to me. Ugliness has infiltrated our every sphere as a byproduct of convenience and irony. It replaced beauty because beauty became too privileged, or too pretentious, or too elitist. When in reality, beauty could humble us all!
This is a moment in time where we have to be honest with ourselves. Ok guys, stuff like this ^ is extremely ugly. Forget “coolness” and forget the message. To me, this is patronizing. It feels like the “cool kids” are saying to us: “you aren’t cool or cultured or smart enough to understand our message.” news flash. we are!
We started confusing discomfort & irony with depth, and then we label it “subversive” to avoid sounding shallow. As a result, we lost touch with beauty and taste. We tried to make art confusing in order for some people to appear more intelligent. When in reality, art is for feeling!
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
SO HOW DOES ONE CULTIVATE TASTE?
Taste is not reserved for the rich or cultured. Actually, sometimes rich people have the worst
taste of all! Anyone can cultivate their taste, and a lack of money may sharpen your eye. When you can’t just consume, you learn to observe, to appreciate, and eventually to create. Sometimes, being rich can make your taste lazy by mistaking access for discernment.
If you have a burning desire to be described as someone with great taste, here is my guide.
1 / EXPOSURE
Good taste requires sight. Not just consumption but exposure. Galleries, museums, fabric stores, old films, flea markets, old neighborhoods, antique shows, gardens. You start to recognize patterns and learn your preferences.
2 / ACTIVE ATTENTION
Not scrolling and liking, but looking at something to understand why something works. Is it the proportions? The light? In a room for example: do you notice how the shape of a chair’s leg mimics the base of a chandelier?
Or what doesn’t work. Ex: my eye hates high contrast, I can’t stand black and white.
3 / EMOTIONAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Good taste has depth; emotional and historical. Emotional intelligence keeps taste from being sterile, trend-driven, and tasteless. It’s not just about how something looks, but how it makes people feel! Great tastemakers know when a campaign is performative or when a space feels cold. But also, when something is tasteless. Good taste requires an understanding of etiquette.
It’s also rare to be able to have that emotional intelligence without having historical context. Ex: can you sense the victorian inspiration behind a 90s Galliano show or the influence of mid-century Italian design in a Soho hotel lobby? Swiss modernism in tech company logos? That Southern porches have their ceilings painted blue? (You don’t need to memorize facts here, this knowledge comes from exposure, exposure, exposure!)
4 / RESTRAINT, OMISSION, & CLARITY
Good taste is restraint! It’s being a constant editor for yourself. It means spending hours on something and having the strength to scrap it. If you’re a designer, it means you don’t have to use every single illustration in the brand book. My best work happens after I delete something!
It also means ignoring noise and forcing yourself to avoid what doesn’t respond to your sensibilities (trends!) On a deeper level, true taste is clarity; the ability to see through the trends and recognize objective beauty. It’s understanding that inherent harmony, grace, and craftsmanship is beautiful even when not fashionable.
5 / MIXING MEDIUMS
You cannot simply have good taste just by consuming social media. It’s too easy, it’s too common, and it’s too much like everyone else. Taste needs to take effort. A great way to force this effort is by taking inspiration from other mediums. If you’re designing a logo, the last thing you should do is look at other logos! Do you need to find a color palette for your dining room? Go to a museum to find the palette from a painting. Need some pillow combo ideas for your bed? Find a chic woman on the street and combine her textures; linen, velvet, leather. Designing a package? Be inspired by the architectural details on a neighbor’s house. Cross-pollination!
IN CONCLUSION :-)
We have been conditioned to sacrifice beauty for the illusion of convenience, ease, and simplicity. We are willing to accept so little when it comes to pleasing our eyes, because at some point during our lifetime, we were taught that beauty is not only secondary, but a detriment to anything hoping to be “serious.”
I wrote this because I want to remind everyone that good taste (which is effectively the trained ability to recognize objective beauty) is not elitist, and it’s not about aesthetics. It’s about respect and dignity! Respect for your environment, for the world around you, for your eyes. Beauty is about reverence; proof that we care enough to make something for others to appreciate.
So my point here is: we need to cultivate halfway decent taste in everyone so we can raise the standard of beauty for us all. And so I can go outside without gagging!
XOXOXO
Oh Annie this was great! Nodding in agreement as I read.
Loved this! It made me think about the sentiment that "art imitates life" and how boring interiors are everywhere...because...boring opinions are everywhere? No one wants to be cancelled for doing something different/telling their truth and no one feels inspired because they're looking externally (at more safe beige) rather than internally where the real inspiration always resides. Hoping 2026 will encourage more interesting and honest perspectives to be shared so more beauty can be experienced.