Can You See Me Now? Toward a Theory of Sensory Flamboyance and Subtlety in Consumption

This article proposes that taste distinctions with respect to sensory intensity – specifically, preferences for sensory flamboyance versus subtlety (e.g., bright versus dull colors) – may be structured sociologically, even more than by individual dispositions. Based on an ethnographic study of women in India, we propose an emergent theory to account for how members of different social classes develop and refine their sensory preferences. Low cultural capital consumers gravitate toward sensory flamboyance, while high cultural capital consumers gravitate toward the subtle. The flamboyance seen among lower class consumers may be grounded largely in an ethic of standing out in order to be “societally visible.” Meanwhile, the subtlety seen among upper classes may be grounded more in a learned proclivity toward more nuanced fitting in, now reinforced by habitus and deployed as a marker of elite status.