Home environments: Aesthetics, fashion, status

Deborah Leslie, Mia Hunt

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingEntry for encyclopedia/dictionary

Abstract

Home decoration is bound up in complex interactions between status, taste and identity. Because home environments are socially constructed, household tastes reflect and reinforce class hierarchies, as well as gender, racial, ethnic, sexual and national differences. Women are primarily responsible for defining the style of the home, and they are often caught between conflicting discourses. A range of institutions – such as the state, reformers and the media – mediate the construction of domestic space, continually forwarding new styles and design philosophies.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home
EditorsSusan J. Smith
PublisherElsevier
Publication statusPublished - 2012

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