004: On Personal Taste

Curiosity over conformity.

With fashion week finally in the rearview, I have been ruminating on the weight and origin of personal taste. In my experience, taste is not something we inherit, it is something we build—slowly and imperfectly.

Yes, we have our natural inclinations. Certain colours, forms, or mediums might carry an inexplicable resonance. But it is through ongoing exposure—to images, objects, spaces, the tangible and intangible elements of the world—that we begin to understand what draws us in. And, from there, our taste evolves.

I want to be clear: I don’t believe in universal ideals. Taste is entirely subjective, which is, in many ways, the point. It is the reason for art, for creation, for curation; to express an individual sense of beauty.

Refining one’s taste into a distinctive point of view requires intention and, more importantly, curiosity. We must actively seek out experiences that broaden our field of reference and, from there, we begin to understand our preferences until the practice becomes almost intuitive.

A simple way to begin understanding one’s own taste is to seek patterns in what we are emotionally drawn to.

In a world of constant stimulation and never ending content, you might wonder why intention and curiosity are so crucial to the cultivation of taste.

Well, without them, we fall into passive consumption. To step away from the algorithmic ideals that flatten culture, design, art, and style requires active resistance. Developing an individual perspective—beyond the allure of a neatly packaged “aesthetic” that has become so ubiquitous as to be meaningless—demands that we assert alternate ideals.

With all that distilled, what are the requirements of taste? In my opinion, it is simply to be defiant in your vision. Find resolve in your individual inclinations and always take the unpaved road of trial and error, rather than the flattened highway to conformity. Shape a world and life that is expressive of your own sense of pleasure and beauty—where every element resonates, with undoubted clarity, as your own.

Always,

Neada