Dalrymple stumbled upon a fashion catalog at a friend’s home and reacted strongly to the tawdry clothing, the emaciated female models, the androgynous male ones, and their sullen expressions….

Ours is a golden age of expensive cheap trash—or is it cheap expensive trash?…

Apart from confirming the old saw that a fool and his money are soon parted, the catalog established beyond much doubt that good taste is like good sense, in other words not universal in time or place. It depends for its development and continuation on character, genetic endowment, and cultural environment. Nothing is so trashy nowadays that it cannot be marketed and we will not buy it.