true quality

Where is true quality? Subliminal marketing and subtle advertising slogans are sucking out the last dregs of energy we possess. Our already overloaded everyday lives are overflowing with empty promises and wellbeing products. ‘Relax and take it easy’ should be our prescription, but it is almost impossible to find true quality concepts.
 
The magic words sucking us in are ‘healthy’, ‘natural’ or ‘organic. No matter where I turn in London and other metropolises, organic grocery shops, cafés, delicatessens and alternative restaurants are emerging. They are all designed along similar lines – oozing faux quality and good taste in best feng shui style. The concept often comes with brochures or menus promising the latest from ‘the organic world’ or the newest miracle ingredient to emerge from the rainforest. All the concepts have one thing in common – you can’t tell them apart from each other.

Sometimes I wonder if our very understanding of individual quality has been lost in this bland sea of so-called quality. The design world’s mantras are ‘brand power’ and ‘brand equity’, so the strongest (and that sometimes means simplest) global concepts are winning the race. Obvious stereotypes – ones that work across physical and cultural borders - are often developed by communication agencies. Calculating consultants are working out a feelgood shopping solution for the consumer in their sights.

The advertisers’ target group lacks quality of life and time. Consequently, they are easily seduced by messages – subliminal or otherwise - promising well-being. With a stress-packed working day and too little personal time, they compensate for feel-bad lives with feel-good shopping.

Compensation culture
In a world overloaded with uncertainty and where stress tops nearly every list of personal woe, the promise of quality or well-being in a jar, can or bottle is seductive indeed.

When society lacks some essential ingredient, its consumers’ first reaction will be to seek it out – at any cost. Quality is now a standard which every product or service claims. But who sets the rules here? Personally, I hate put-on/pretend quality. The worst anyone can expose me to is a so-called health shop with bags and wrappings in recycled paper and shelf after shelf of organic products artfully displayed in natural baskets. Yes it’s a slickly natural environment – but behind the ‘earthy’ values are price tags way above the average consumer’s budget and the true worth of the products.

There are the shelves packed with vitamins and minerals - five times more than they should cost just because the herbs have been collected on a cliff side somewhere in Tibet. We all love a good story, but there are limits.

So how can we find the well-being we seek, when time after time we are ripped off in our search for true and ethical quality? Restaurants promise ‘slow food’, which is made, production assembly line style, in a stressed kitchen? Or dishes are based around products so ‘rare’ that the portion on the plate is barely visible, while the price on the menu card is hardly credible. Where is the quality in all this? Are we heading for a dream society, or have our aspirations turned this into a living nightmare?

When good taste goes bad
Every day we add and delete items on the global definition list for good taste and quality. Hot new ingredients or must-have accessories become ‘so last year’ by the time they’ve moved from scarce to supermarket. The rules are easy: just follow the leader. But charting the endless ups and downs of the taste barometer leaves very little room for individual expression - even less for one-off creativity.

Picasso once described taste as creativity’s biggest enemy. Furthermore, good taste and quality is often pegged as something only accessible to an elite – those with money. When enough people save up and buy these iconic items, then the elite will react against them.

The paradox of good taste has been described and summed up by Poul Henningsen in an humorous and brief way: “Good taste is normally bad taste.” And this has been displayed most visibly in the ‘bling bling’ trend from Versace, Gucci et al - almost mocking us by overt displays of showy opulence and tacky excess.

Overflow and emptiness
Balance and considered judgement seem to be lacking in all facets of our lives. The very way we assess and experience the world around us seems to conspire against this. ‘Media pornography’ thrives on shock and horror so it can be difficult for the individual to feel true well-being. Misery headlines: war in Iraq, Aids in Africa, financial crises in Germany – tell us on a daily basis that we are hovering on a precipice, despite the fact that we are wealthier and technically healthier than ever before.

In this world of vulgar excess, with more choice than is good for us, we experience confusion and a sense of emptiness. Trends for anti globalisation and local values are a clear reaction against this. Anti-fashion looks set to become the next big movement, as people reject the price tags and the values inherent in slavish copycat dressing.

Anne Lise Kjaer
October 5, 2003