Women are purveyors of taste

British design reformer Charles Eastlake once wrote that “the faculty of distinguishing good from bad design in familiar objects of domestic life is a faculty which educated people – women especially – conceive they possess”.

Sigh. The words women and domestic are linked again.

Women’s relationship to design in terms of taste is explored in As Long As It’s Pink, The Sexual Politics Of Taste, a new book by Penny Sparke. It argues that taste is a quality assigned to women, while design is “a man-made construction which has taken aesthetic authority from women”.

Is this why the main players in our industry are – let’s be honest about it – mainly chaps?

Find out in As Long As It’s Pink. It’s published by Pandora and costs 9.99.