The Substance of Style
By Virginia Postrel 

     You don't have to read Virginia Postrel's articulate, funny, well-written, well-argued, inventive exploration of surfaces and surfacing desire to know that people all over recognize The Substance of Style. The phenomenon of the Fab Five in "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" proves this every week by making over likeable but clueless (in a word, normal) straight men who are restless for a change.

     Exploring the difference between brown worn work shoes and Kenneth Cole patents might seem purely superficial, but the straight guys have tuned into their wives and girlfriends and thus the Queer Eye guys, and tuned out the same critics who for years insisted that the prom queen couldn't be a Nobel laureate.

     Postrel makes the point the Fab Five might agree with: we can appreciate the prom queen for being beautiful without wanting to re-enact the prom scene from "Carrie." While observers may think this fascination with the superficial indicates our civilization has gone to hell in a Prada bag, Postrel makes the sensible argument that changing our look--and thus our identity--to create meaning is a fundamental human activity. It doesn't mean that we should all Botox ourselves or become like H.G. Wells' pampered Eloi in The Time Machine, fodder for the brutish clever Morlocks.

     Instead, Postrel's incisive arguments explore our relationship to our world, covering topics as diverse as Starbucks, religious objections to makeup, the 2000 presidential election, Martha Stewart, straight men caring about their looks, and Afghani women painting fingernails after the defeat of the Taliban. This book enlightens with its substance, but pleases overwhelmingly with its style.