Things My Mama Taught Me About Taste
Why taste, intuition, and cultural literacy will define the next era of creative work
I came to understand taste really early in life... Not having my own taste refined, but understanding what it is through my mother. Since I remember she always had an impeccable taste and for the longest time, growing up I was convinced that she was born with it. Now I'm in my 30s, professionally I'm what is traditionally described as a Creative Director. But really, I am a creative on a quest discovering what makes something feel right. I now understand, that my mum has always had this intuitive discipline about what she consumed, read, watched, where we travelled, what we did, what conversations she participated in, who she surrounded herself with and very strict with things she didn't want to see - these are the boundaries of taste. Which is why growing up I don't remember ever seeing news on TV, my mama refused for it to be the background of our daily lives , just because it was there. Most of the time the TV was set to channel called Культура (The Culture) - which was a digest or overview of most recent cultural moments, deep dives into lives of the greatest musicians, writers, designers, actors and directors... I guess I really didn't have a chance at a different career haha.
I didn't really understand why back then, but found myself being interested and of course subconsciously consuming it. My mum intentionally exposed us to culture and art history, without it ever feeling like pressure. I was never forced to do anything, on the contrary, my mum somehow made conversations of noticing beauty interesting and important. My mother’s taste has shaped every detail of her life, the way we set the table while making crepes on Sunday morning. The way she always wore something silky at home, it wasn’t expensive, it didn’t need to be, but it was well made and chic. The way my mum would encourage the sense of wonder in me while we went for our long walks. This week me and mum talked about taste, probably for the first time, I’ve asked her about her experience of taste and I will pepper her thoughts in this newsletter ...
On ‘good taste’ vs. ‘deep taste’
Are we born with intuition or do we develop it? In my opinion, it is a little bit of both and taste is in the same category. I don’t think we are born with taste. Taste is cultivated slowly, like a garden, through exposure, attention, and repetition. But, I do believe some of us are born with an acute sensitivity to beauty. A sort of intuition and pleasure we get when something is just right.
“There was something in me from the start, a sensitivity, a kind of response. I remember being drawn to the way my father looked in his gaberdine suit. He had a suit, a watch, beautiful hands… those are the things I noticed. And with my mother, I remember her leather gloves, they fit her like a second skin. I didn’t understand what those things meant. But I was captivated by them. “ - my mum
That sensitivity is where it starts. Taste is what happens when you learn to follow it. Trust it. Shape it and find a way to share it.
Good taste can sometimes be surface-level. Doubling down on things that are popular without really diving into the why. It can be performative, aligned with trends, status, aesthetics, movements.
Deep taste requires cultural curiosity and personal clarity. Knowing yourself as well as you know your references. “Deep taste” is built from within. Being interested in obscure movements, making unexpected connections, trusting your eye even when it’s not popular.
And it requires failure.
“Deep taste’ requires you to fail while discovering who you are and what is your point of view. Failing is the most important part of this process. It’s messy and it should be that way. You have to make things that don’t quite work. You have to wear the weird outfits, go through awkward creative phases, put out projects that make you cringe a little in hindsight. That’s not wasted time, it’s essential. Which is why I think we should cherish those embarrassing fashion choices we made as teenagers or design choices we made as junior creatives. At least we were following our intuition. We were experimenting. We were trying to figure out who we were and that’s the whole point. Better that, than staying safely inside someone else’s aesthetic template.
Cultural Literacy as the future of creative profession
Taste is both a private compass and a shared language. It’s built over time and with intention through paying attention to things. Taste is also discipline, being intentional with what you consume, what you let in, what you leave behind. It’s your boundaries.
“We've entered an era where the aestheticisation of experience has become the primary method of value creation. When content is infinite, curation becomes the ultimate luxury good.” - The Akin
What does it all mean for us creatives? I find it fascinating how far the concept of taste has penetrated our culture this year more specifically. What was once a quiet conversations between close friends is now a common theme in Substack, group chats, and essays. As I mentioned in one of my previous newsletter taste is having a moment and it’s unfolding parallel to AI reshaping our creative media landscape.
“A certain amount of mystery always pervades design. By nature, designers operate from the margins, responsible not just for the image but also for the lesser-seen aspects of visual expression - the format, the detail, how and why an idea takes shape or fulfils its purpose.
Blurriness comes with the territory.” - It’s Nice That
Designer as a profession was always a bit ambiguous, but now we are entering a very interesting next chapter in what it means to be a designer and a creative. The role of the designer has never been easily defined, but we know it meant a balancing act of good taste and ability to execute. And yet nobody really talked about designer’s taste, instead the technical knowledge was always at the forefront ...the tools, the craft, the software, the deliverables. The minutiae of the behind the scenes process, the trails of creative discovery, the meticulous curation of references on the pin board - was never given much attention outside of designer’s studio.
Now, that AI is developing into being a powerful design tool when it comes to creative execution, we shine the spotlight on and trying to analyse what is happening in designer’s brain. Before the vision is set, before the path is clear ... What guides us - our intuition, our acute sensitivity to beauty, our taste?
There’s an ongoing conversation and fear that designers will loose their jobs and become absolute. That anyone with AI will be able to do what we do. Time and time again I have to remind myself, AI can generate, but it can’t feel resonance. AI is an “infinite visual soup”, not a creative who remembers that one juice box design from their local grocer. AI hasn’t read the zine that made it cry or watched the indie film that shook its worldview. It hasn’t traveled, collected, questioned. It hasn’t felt the failure of a creative project. That's where our role shifts from maker to curator, visionary and more so the interpreter of meaning.
Just as being fluent in a language allows for nuance and makes us understand the person on a deeper level, being fluent in culture and patterns allows style and substance to merge. I know there’s a discourse about how “nobody cares about substance anymore,” how everything’s surface-level, algorithm-fed aesthetic loops. But I don’t fully buy that. Aesthetic trends can only take us so far. Substance, the kind that really moves people, comes from within. It comes from a creative’s internal reference bank and the clarity of knowing how and when to draw from it.
Cultural literacy allows you to time travel. To recognise patterns from the past, interpret the present, and sense what’s just around the corner. That’s why the most compelling trend forecasts come from those with deep reference points.
“we can no longer hope to discover our dream career by stumbling across someone else doing it first” - It’s Nice That
In this new world our careers are yet to be rediscovered and created... and I actually think it’s exciting. It becomes clearer that as creative thinkers our job is to synthesise fragments of culture into new meaning. Highlight the nuance, push beyond the visuals and ask: Where did this come from? What does it mean now? What could it mean next? There is a level of critical thinking that we as creatives have to develop and nurture. This is also why we’re seeing the rise of a new kind of online creators, who interrogate why the same AI tool can produce astonishing results for one person and feel completely lifeless in the hands of another. It’s after all a tool and it will join the likes of Adobe and Figma in our tool belt. And as any tool it needs that creative brain, that depth of taste and the clarity of vision to be able to use it as a springboard.
“I owe it everything to curiosity - it makes the world a better place for me! Every day brings something new - a discovery, a shift, a spark. What new idea a designer will have, how our lives will evolve with technology… that excites me. - my mum
Taste and creative research
“the act of researching itself is becoming more passive and homogeneous, with many of us organising and collecting references through the same channels.” - It’s Nice That
Taste is the antidote to the sameness of references. Once again if we think about nostalgia, - that word that’s been following all of us around since, what, 2019? How many creative outputs out there were created inspired by nostalgia? Hundreds, thousands, I think millions at this point. And yet in the sea of sameness we have gems like Amsterdam Museum by From Form, or No Worries if Not by Little Troop or how Sofia Coppola works with references. What differentiates them from the rest ? Maybe it’s understanding that every artist before us is what made our culture and we are part of this “lineage of artists spanning hundreds of years” and now it’s our turn to add to this collective weave. As Zoë Yasemin Akihary very well put it maybe it’s about understanding “what stays relevant once you strip away the filters and the styling codes of the moment.” Maybe instead of bluntly referencing the visuals, what really makes the difference is looking deeper to see how others have done this before and why?
Tasteful research is not about hoarding cool things. We all see it online, same demographics, predominantly western, same “style icons”, time periods, aesthetics, we are witnessing “aesthetic flattening” coined by Kate Crawford . Tasteful research is about following your fascinations. It’s about getting obsessed with what you like.
Tasteful research is about knowing why something resonates - and how it can shape your own perspective.
When you understand your own fascinations and obsessions, you move from ‘aesthetic moodboarder’ to tastemaker.
“Everything is in details and colour harmony. Interiors and spaces bring me real joy. It’s like a celebration to me - whether it’s a restaurant, gallery, or someone’s home. I notice everything: the colour of the chandelier, the serving plates, the selection of books, there is a story in these choices.” - my mum
My approach to nurturing my taste
Understanding my beginnings
In my own quest of understanding the foundation of my taste and in an attempt to return to it, I have started with building my personal canon. It is a collection of references, films, music, designers, artists that have influenced me.
“I think this applies especially well to works that we consumed at a young age. Even if they were not the most “intellectual” or “profound” works, they found you at a certain moment in your youth and stayed with you” - The Digital Meadow
So far it has uncovered some interesting discoveries and parallels to what I loved when I was 7 and what I love now in my 30s. I have started creating my personal canon because I wanted to get in tuned with my natural interests, without having any external influence telling me what I should be interested in. Without disappearing into the reference. I now understand how valuable those reference points were. Maybe they were not cool, but they are mine and they somehow made me.
Creating my own reference archive
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we collect references and I’m feeling the urge to break away from the usual rules. Rather than curating things based on aesthetic or trend or era, I’m experimenting with curating my references in collections based on intuition. It might be a particular feeling of deja vu that this collection evokes, or a very specific time and place, like music scene styling of 2001 or things that remind me of Russian folklore visuals.
It’s less about what fits together visually, and more about what resonates on a gut level. I want my archive to feel like something weird and wonderful and entirely my own. To create that, I’ve been returning to physical mediums: libraries, vintage magazines, old packaging. I’m scanning these tactile finds into my digital archive, slowly building a reference library that doesn’t live solely online. It brings me a lot of joy and inspires ideas. I will report back on my progress.
Keeping a commonplace notebook
I have this tiny notebook (tiny because it’s easier to carry it around with me ). Whenever I’m listening to a podcast, reading a book, watching a film, or just people-watching at a cafe, I jot things down. I write down anything that brings out any kind of emotion or curiosity in me. It’s a beautiful and simple way to slow down and take in the information that fascinates us in an intentional way.
Taste is restraint. It’s intention. It’s knowing what to emphasise and what to leave out. It’s a sense of rhythm, and the confidence to hold back. - my mum
If you read till the very end, I so so appreciate you! This piece has brought me a lot of joy to write!
M x
I want to meet your mum! Great piece Maria x