I’ve said before that developing taste or hobbies won’t help you dress better.
That is still true.
But what’s more irritating is how confidently the idea is presented.
Read the classics. Visit galleries. Refine your eye.
It’s usually framed as if you’re slightly behind and just need to catch up.
Catch up to what, exactly?
What that advice avoids saying is that “taste” is usually just a signal for class.
Or more precisely, a particular environment.
Certain materials. A certain level of restraint. Certain references.
If you’re already around that environment it will feel natural. If you’re not, you can feel disconnected.
So “developing taste” often becomes a fairly expensive attempt to close the gap.
This is where things start to look off.
You are no longer responding to your actual conditions.
The cabbage jacket is a good example of this.
For some people it will read as “poor taste.”
It’s too loud. Too literal. Too strange.
But that only makes sense if you’re measuring it against the wrong reference point.
It does not come from that environment.
It comes from gardening.
Unfortunately, once your reference point is fixed, everything that doesn’t align is not just different.
After a while, something about that didn’t sit right.
It wasn’t really about developing your taste.
It was about trying to fit into an environment you’re not actually in.