Decoding Glamour

Fromer Reason editor Virginia
Postrel‘s book
The Power of Glamour has just been published, and the
reviews I’ve seen so far have been very favorable. Here is
Kirkus, for example:

Glamour, she argues, is not equivalent to luxury
and cannot be bought; instead, it depends on the object in question
and its audience’s imagination and desire. “It is not a product or
style but a form of communication and persuasion,” she writes. “It
depends on maintaining exactly the right relationship between
object and audience, imagination and desire. Glamour is fragile
because perceptions change.” In two- to three-page sections,
Postrel unpacks so-called icons and archetypes, including
princesses, superheroes, makeovers and cities like Shanghai, and
judges each on its illusory powers and pitfalls.

You can read the rest of that piece
here, and you can read a feminist take on the text in The
New Inquiry here.
We’ll be publishing an excerpt from the book in the January
Reason, so keep an eye out for that.