May 5, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston
Sometimes the tide of fashion flows uphill.
I heard Ruth Reichl speak at “Foodstock,” a mini-conference at Wesleyan University. The interviewer, Faith Middleton, asked her if food was subject to fashion. Absolutely, said Reichl, and the fashions are always related to class. Reichl is a wonderful food writer and editor, and I assume she knows her food social history. The example she gave was from ancient Rome.
After the onstage interview was over, I asked her if fashions in food, like those in clothing and names,* diffuse downward through the class system.
Yes, she said, but sometimes it goes the other way. Right now, chefs in high-end restaurants are drawing inspiration from the ethnic food trucks that have sprung up in the last few years. She added that a similar trend sometimes happens with clothing – a street fashion gets picked up by trendy designers, who tweak it slightly and send it onto the runways, though with a price tag that would make the original wearers gasp.
Right, I thought – blue jeans. These had always been cheap and durable – qualities that made them ideal as work clothes for people who labored outdoors, or play clothes for kids. Then in the 1970s, Gloria Vanderbilt, Calvin Klein, and others reached down through the class strata, hauled them up, tightened the fit, and gave us “designer jeans.”
Another example might be beer, long an ordinary, working-class sort of drink with little cachet. But now we have “designer beers” – more expensive “craft beers” from micro-breweries, ales and lagers that allow sophisticated people to show off their discernment.
I mentioned this idea to Eric Asimov, the New York Times wine critic, as we stood in line at the Ethiopian food truck. “Is there any equivalent in wine?” I asked.
Maybe in France, he said. The big name wine houses will buy a vineyard or wine from a region not known for “great” wines. So you’ll see the more ordinary wine, carignan for example, but under the a more famous label.
I doubt that these regional wines would be considered to be “better” that the Bordeaux and Burgundies. But in their own way, they might become more fashionable
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* (Update to the previous post). In 2010, Isabella was among the top five names in all but two states (Idaho and Utah), but just eight years earlier, only seven states accorded her that place – Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Florida, and Rhode Island. In naming their daughters Isabella, states like Arkansas, Kentucky and Wyoming are Jacob-come-latelys.
I would guess that even within those vanguard states, the 2002 Isabellas were born to more educated and wealthier parents. Fashions in clothing follow a similar path. By the time a style shows up in Target, the people who first bought it are looking for something else.
3 comments:
The wine example which has been given might not be best - since the wines discussed are considered "classic" and not something that recently came into fashion (I have to note that I am far from being a wine connoisseur).
If we're talking about alcoholic drinks in general, there is of course such thing as "fashion" (e.g. certain cocktails, certain liqueurs that are either in or out of fashion), things that started in the Third World (Goa Parties, Brazil, Full Moon Parties in Thailand etc.) and are now being drank in "high society functions".
Regarding wine it might be a bit trickier, but again - the question is if there are wines from globally marginalised regions that were only popular locally and suddenly became fashionable among the wine-enthusiasts. Perhaps wines from regions outside the "traditional" wine regions of France (Spain, Italy) that are now considered good. I don't think that 30 years ago, you would have seen a high-society dinner which would have had wines from Chile, California, South Africa or Australia. So maybe Australian Shiraz (and again, I don't pretend to know much about wines except for the very basics).
Tamar, Thanks for the info about cocktails, which I know absolutely nothing about.
I don’t follow wine chatter – it was almost embarrassing talking with Asimov and having read his column maybe once or twice – but I would guess that wine sophisticates would say that they’re drinking wines from Chile or wherever because the winemakers there have finally learned how to make good wine. That would certainly be true for California wines, which can now be as pricey as French wines.
But what I think Asimov meant was that the sophisticates are slumming a bit – drinking the cheaper, regional stuff that the locals there drink and finding some virtue in that has till now been ignored. But I don’t think they can make a fashionable adjustment to it to upgrade it the way clothing designers can.
Maybe in wine packaging. Screw off caps. Try and find a New Zealand or Australian bottle of wine with a cork. The rest of the world makes decent boxed wine, too.
But ironically, despite all the BS in the wine world, I think there's more agreement that some wine is simply better than other wine. The same can't said in the fashion world (or the beer world). With perhaps the exception of Greek retsina, I don't think drinkers of cheap wine think their wine is *better* than expensive wine. It's just that the cheap stuff is good enough, or perfectly drinkable and a comparative bargain. I don't think somebody drinking jug gallo would reject an expensive wine. They just wouldn't want to pay for it. But a drinker of Bud Lite May honestly not like some hopped-up micro-brew.
The world has been at the wine making thing for millennia. Good wine costs more.
That said, there is so much BS in the wine world (like the "super-premium" liquor world) that you simply can't market a great wine as cheap. At the high end, it is about conspicuous consumption. You might want to wear jeans and not care about the cost. But if you don't care about the cost, why drink a bad wine?
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