The Power of Glamour by Virginia Postrel

“Glamour,” as defined by Postrel, is probably more important for you to understand than you think.

Before reading the book, the concept of glamour almost never appeared on my personal radar screen. I am rational. Non-status-seeking. Sober minded. When I search the word, the links that pop up are not of interest to me. Not Glamour Magazine with its “Latest Fashion Trends” or “celebrity beauty secrets,” nor the articles such as “Many are speaking out against TikTok’s AI powered ‘Bold Glamour’ filter,” and “Bella Hadid Just Debuted A New Fringe & We Don’t Know What To Call It – See Photos.”

When I do an image search on the word, a surprising number of motorcycles appear - more often than perfumes. Even the motorcycles hold no interest for me, despite the fact that I am male and probably in the target audience for that particular manifestation of glamour. Did I mention that I am rational and sober minded?

I have a policy of, at least once in a while, randomly trying a movie, a piece of music, or a book precisely because it doesn’t fit the normal profile of movies, music, books that appeal to me. I think this is due to my respect for the principle of diminishing returns. It’s hard to be surprised by whatever your “usual” stuff is, so it pays to break out of those ruts. Virginia Postrel’s The Power of Glamour was that type of book for me. It paid off.

If we were to make a Venn diagram showing “Postrelian glamour” on the one hand and the traditional version on the other, there is indeed an area of intersection. But it is not a big overlap. And Postrel’s glamour is the larger and deeper of the two ideas. My sober-mindedness largely protects me from the effects of the traditional version. From the more important Postrelian glamour? Not so much.

The Model

The book begins by introducing us to four year old Mabinty Bantura, who, while living in a Sierra Leone orphanage, sees a picture of a beautiful ballerina in a magazine. To Mabinty, this picture was glamorous. It would inspire her and drive her, dictating decision after decision on her path to becoming Michaela DePrince, a professional ballerina in New York City.

Postrel calls glamour a form of “nonverbal rhetoric,” which provokes behavior via an emotional response. Just as a joke may lead to your laughter, the thing you find glamorous (regardless of whether you think of it that way or use that word) produces a “... pang of projection, admiration, and longing.” Michaela saw the picture, knew that it would be wonderful if it were a picture of herself, and longed to become that person.

How did glamour do that? By making Michaela envious? By slashing her self-esteem so she felt the need to buy the right clothes and shoes to make herself feel better? Postrel addresses critics who take this or similar positions. But those interpretations of glamour, she says, are far less interesting than what actually drove Michaela. Thus begins the deep dive into Postrelian glamour and what distinguishes it from luxury, charisma, romance and other concepts. And how it drives (and is driven by) social evolution.

Here is my outline of Postrel’s model and vocabulary:

Glamour is what connects an audience (which can be an individual) with a “totem” (image, concept, or some other item including a “celebrity”).
For an audience to be susceptible to glamour, the audience must have an “inarticulate longing.” An inarticulate desire. Let’s call it the “ID.” Maybe for Michaela it is to rise out of her impoverished situation in Sierra Leone.
What Postrel calls “nonverbal…images, concepts, and totems” I will simply call the “totem.” Postrel insists it must be nonverbal. Concepts made up of a bunch of words must be “perceived and remembered as emotionally resonant snapshots” in order to become a totem. In the Michaela example, the totem is the photograph.
Postrel tells us that the word “glamour” comes from an old Scots word meaning “magic spell.” To Postrel, this is an apt description of the process connecting an audience and a totem. Various phenomena (some of which may be consciously designed by skilled users of specific techniques) can intensify and draw out the longing that the audience possesses. The key is to bind “image and desire.”
The totem succeeds only if the audience is “receptive.” This means the totem must represent a “desire fulfilled,” and must be sufficiently mysterious to encourage projection by the audience into the totem. Of course, intellectually we know that there are “flaws, costs, frictions” required to actually “get there,” and others that may result from actually ”getting there” (“there” being the fulfilled state). These things must be hidden from, or willfully ignored by, the audience. Michaela’s photo likely contained no information regarding the extraordinary lengths she would have to go to in order to achieve her goal. If it had, it is likely she would have ignored it.
When the audience and a totem are connected in this way, the audience experiences an emotional reaction which has a potentially important impact on its behavior.

That is a pretty abstract description. The model doesn’t generate statistically verifiable predictions. And frankly, it wasn’t clear to me that this model held much promise for telling us much outside of the traditional concept of glamour (which, as I’ve already explained, interests me little). Sure, maybe it can tell us a bit about inspirational stories like Michaela’s. But those are rare situations – how much is there to really learn from it?

With my second reading of the book, it hit me in a personal way. Let me explain.

The Power of Glamour is filled with examples. Often when I am reading, I will skip examples or go through them quickly - if I think I adequately grasp the idea being exemplified. But I find that the examples in this book serve an important purpose beyond explanation. They are also there to help you explore yourself. If you allow it.

The example that triggered me is in the chapter “The Evolution of Glamour.” This section is a look at the history. What became glamorous when and why? In this section, Postrel argues that urbanization was a pivotal event in the history of glamour, a veritable “phase change” in this fundamental social force. The explanation of how this sort of cambrian explosion of glamour occurred along with urbanization is fascinating. But for me the most interesting thing was when I read the line “Among the objects of glamour was the city itself, as seen or imagined from afar.” It dawned on me that since childhood I have found the “big city” generally, and New York in particular, glamorous in a Postrelian sense. I certainly never thought of it in those terms, and I don’t recall exactly when or why NYC became a totem for me. But somehow it did.

Of course, this is nothing like Michaela’s experience. It is far less specific. But that's not important. What is important is that it seemed to grow out of some “inarticulate longing,” and that it drove important decisions in my life.

Now, just in case you didn’t know, I am sober minded. So I absolutely do have perfectly rational explanations for all the decisions I made about where to live, go to school, and what careers to pursue. I am well trained in the art of explanation making. But if I reach back far enough, the starting point now seems to me as arbitrary as a random magazine picture.

Once I grasped that, the whole glamour thing seemed quite a bit more important.

Glamour and the Individual

Michaela’s story, as described by Postrel, beautifully demonstrates the potential importance of Postrelian glamour for a given individual. It’s actually mind-boggling to consider the range and variety of decisions made, goals set, information gathered, products bought and actions taken over the course of her life that would have been different - perhaps significantly so - had events been slightly different on the fateful day she saw the photo. A kind of personal butterfly effect.

The startling thing about the Michaela example isn’t that there is this deep desire, but rather how specific it is. It seems like the truly deep desire was simply to change her circumstances, to rise from poverty, to “get out of here.” If something called “glamour” can turn that very general goal into one specific sub-goal like “become a ballerina,” well, that’s a pretty powerful force. There are countless alternative sub-goals that could have been chosen to accomplish the same objective. Probably many easier ones. But, as a result of a random event, this particular one became the focus.

Michaela was unusual, to say the least. The vast majority of us take more convoluted (and less inspirational) paths to wherever we end up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the force of glamour has less of an impact on our behavior. While I personally made many decisions (at least in part) based on my englamoured perception of a distant city when I was very young, I would go on to change locations and careers a number of times. But life is a path dependent experience. Even if I was never under the spell of glamour again in my life, all later decisions were taken in light of the experience I gained when I was so gripped.

I suspect that receptivity to glamour doesn’t come from a specific desire (“I have to escape this poverty!,” “I have to become a dancer!”). Instead it is an almost instinctive desire to simply change - even when no change is really needed (my life was perfectly fine and yet I still wanted to move across the country). Call it the World War Z principle. In the movie by that name, the Brad Pitt character explains the secret of survival in a very dangerous world (like the one in which humans evolved): “movimiento es vida.” Movement is life.

Postrel seems to be of two minds regarding the specificity of the IDs that drive people. At one point she says “Glamour may be an illusion, but it reveals the truth about what we desire and, sometimes, what we can become.” As if the fact that we respond to a given totem tells us something unique to us. But she will also say, regarding glamorous individuals (“celebrities”), that as audience members we project ourselves into the celebrity, in an urge to satisfy “the yearning to be recognized as important.” But that is not exactly a specific desire. Doesn’t just about everyone want to be important in some way?

Similarly, Postrel describes the photo of a glamorous woman tennis player gazing into the distance (her book cover). This is a typical totem which "...encourages us to project ourselves into the scene, filling in the details with our own desires." Glamour seems to activate not a deep desire within us but rather desire itself. Or at least a very abstract one.

In example after example we learn about a very large number of “totems.” Also, we are introduced to a much smaller but still significant number of techniques that are used to link them to IDs. But, as far as I can tell, we see basically only two or three actual IDs, which are sometimes hard to distinguish from one another.

Michaela herself describes her ID as the desire for “freedom…hope…trying to live a little longer.” She wanted a big change.
Movies like All the President’s Men and TV shows like CSI made young people select specific careers which had been dramatized as glamorously important. They wanted to “make a difference,” to do “important” things.
Did you know that nuns were glamorous in the 1950s, complete with nun movies and even nun dolls? It was all about “sacrificial glamour,” they say. Make a difference. Be important.
Aviators. This is a remarkably persistent and widespread glamour totem. Does everyone want to be a pilot? I don’t think so. More likely it's about escape and movement in general.
A Chinese kid in the 1970s glamorized an American candy wrapper, which he viewed as a totem leading him to actually move to America. Escape. Movement. Change.
The glamour of central planning! This was more surprising to me than even the nuns. In the 1930’s and 40’s, planning was all the rage. “It could be democratic or fascist, socialist or corporatist, communist or technocratic.” But everywhere it was the essence of “modern.” Planning was even the message of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which set out to tell “the story of this planned environment, this planned industry, this planned civilization.” Perhaps movement is still the underlying ID - a movement to a utopian future. (No wonder Hayek had trouble gaining traction.)
Two real estate ads are compared. They look almost identical. Similarly posed models look out a window. But one of the ads is a pitch to suburbanites to move into the city. The other, a pitch to New Yorkers to move to where they can “escape from the noise.” Again, movement and change, even if the specific objectives of the ads are opposite.
Barack Obama is a classic “glamorous” politician. His first attempt at the presidency involved a campaign of largely undefined “change.” Voters projected onto him the changes they wanted. (By the way, Postrel’s discussion of the difference between glamour, epitomized by Obama, and charisma, epitomized by Bill Clinton, is especially interesting. Bottom line: glamour is what you need to campaign. Charisma is what you need to govern.)
Martial glamour, the “glamour of battle,” says Postrel, is perhaps glamour’s most ancient form of all. What ID does it appeal to? “Make a difference,” “be important.” But like all glamorous items, it ebbs and flows in its influence. The martial glamour of the pre-World War I period apparently morphed (at least among the allies) into pacifist glamour in the pre-World War II period. Perhaps not the best timing.

If the deep ID we all share is just a longing to transform ourselves or our environment, the totem can be anything. Perhaps within some very broad limits, but still, essentially the totem is random. Countless very distinct goals are consistent with “change!” or “be important!.” It doesn’t have to be based on any actual immediate need. It is a goal unto itself. It is devoid of reason. Reason will be used to achieve that goal, but not to generate it. It was generated by the mysterious, information-deficient totem. Was it a rational calculation that led Michaela to set the goal of specifically becoming a ballerina? That’s a stretch. Was she rational in deciding all the steps to get there, to become a ballerina once the goal was set? I’m guessing mostly yes.

Perhaps people inherently have trouble getting motivated, and this is “solved” by being susceptible to this strange force. But I find something quite bothersome about it. If you think of yourself as a rational being, it's a bit disconcerting that so much of your life can be determined by a fundamentally nonrational process. And it doesn’t stop there.

Glamour and Society

Most of Postrel’s examples are of glamour episodes which were part of big social phenomena. But why would glamour drive lots of people in the same direction?

One factor might be the ongoing improvements in the art and science of creating glamorous images and other totems for marketing purposes. Experts in this technology get large numbers of people to, say, buy their product. Important though this may be, the interesting thing to me is how unpredictable the results of this force seem to be. We don’t know precisely what Michaela’s photo actually was. An advertisement perhaps? But whatever the product (a deodorant? a performance of The Nutcracker? a book about Russia?) it seems that thing was not particularly relevant to Michaela at all.

As already mentioned, Postrel argues that the rise of cities vastly increased the power of glamour. “What had been once a rare or occasional experience became all but unavoidable. Instead of a handful of manifestations, glamour took on many forms, embodying a diversity of desires in a wide variety of objects.” Lots of people and things to look at! The simple human tendency to imitate others’ behavior seems like it must play a role here, although Postrel does not explicitly discuss it. The “phase change” that glamour underwent with urbanization may have emerged simply because there was a lot more behavior to observe and imitate. Imitation as a glamour amplifier.

This brings me back to the theme of the glamour’s tenuous relationship with rationality.

What function does imitation serve for people? It can be considered a way of thinking through others. I could do as follows: analyze ways of accomplishing my goals, absorb all the relevant knowledge, derive sub goals (by combining the higher goals with specific knowledge of the world) and generate a plan of action. Then I take action. Next, I look at the results (new knowledge) of my actions and adjust those plans and goals based on the new knowledge. This is action based on thinking, on being rational. And sometimes I actually do all this.

But on the other hand I’m pretty busy, and also a bit lazy. It's hard to go through this whole process with every damn thing. So I take short cuts. I have to allocate my thinking resources. I look around and see how others are achieving their goals, and figure out ways to imitate them.

However, the process gets still refined as I evaluate the results of my actions. If I test some specific imitated behavior, I can adjust if it falls short. Imitation becomes a way to socialize knowledge. To learn from others. Even imitative behavior can be totally rational.

Except, does that work for the glamorous things in my life? How do I test whether or not a behavior is satisfying an ID like “be important,” or “change things?” There’s quite a bit of room for sloppy thinking there, to say the least. Glamour introduces a kind of socially amplified nonthinking which can evade correction indefinitely.

What To Take From the Book

Here are some suggestions I would make based on my reading of this fine book:

Look for “glamour driven behavior” in yourself. Using Postrel’s definition. It can be humbling.
Resign yourself to the fact that society as a whole will always be, in large part, random. Not just individuals. Groups too, since the power of imitation amplifies the power of glamour. It will often look insane. Postrel tries to be an optimist about it all. “Glamour may be an illusion, but it reveals the truth about what we desire.” Really? Or does it just reveal the truth that we have predominantly random, unarticulated desires that we are always chasing? Don't get me wrong. Postrel is not simplistic about this. She sees the downside too, touching on everything from the trap of overspending on “glamorous” items, to the role of glamour among Nazis, terrorists and gangsters. But in the end, Postrel emphasizes the upside. The whole thing rattles me more than her.
Since nothing seems to escape the reach of artificial intelligence these days, do we need to consider what AI advances will do in the world of glamour? Of course! I have no contribution to the debates over whether there is some essentially human ability that AI will never be able to conquer. But what is clear is that more and more human reasoning activities are becoming unnecessary. Except for the pure pleasure of thinking (a pleasure which not everyone shares), AI reduces the number of things you need to think about. Given that, all I am left with are questions: Since AI, like imitation, is a kind of thinking-substitute, will AI lead people to engage in less imitation? What if we spend ever more time applying our AI tools in the service of random glamorous totems that change arbitrarily? What would that kind of world look like?
If you must, go ahead and learn the principles of manipulating others through the techniques of glamour. Use the book as a how-to manual. It will explain black and white vs. color photos. Still photos vs video. Sunglasses. Stuff like that. However, I’m skeptical about how much one can do with this. Given that I see randomness at its core, I wonder if anyone can forecast trends or turning points in Postrelian glamour. Is it like the stock market, where good salespeople thrive by telling you what stocks to buy, but in reality their forecasting skills are nonexistent?
Postrel’s suggestion is to use your own episodes of glamour driven behavior for the “life-enhancing inspiration” that they are, but to try to maintain your reasoning abilities, to try to remember “what might be left out.” Yes, but this is hard. First, the shiny thing you find glamorous is inherently nonrational. And second, trying to be rational will often just make you rationalize what you’ve already decided. But it doesn’t hurt to try.
Finally, be a bit more tolerant of glamour driven behavior in others. I have always been indifferent to or even looked down on traditionally glamorous things. So much of it seems like wasteful conspicuous consumption and senseless status-signaling. Of course, there is much of that. But when you see people under its spell, they aren’t always trying to elevate themselves above you, even if that’s how it feels. They might just be trying to elevate themselves, period. They might succeed, or they might fail. Perhaps some understanding - even sympathy at times - is called for. Remember, you probably have your own IDs.

Here's the book.