The fashion and luxury industries, laboratories for consumption, give pride of place to desire over need, the superfluous over the necessary, sensibility over reason and seduction over the faculty to judge. Over the past few years, we have seen an industrial revolution that can be characterized by the “aesthetic” conversion of capitalism: the latter aimed less at producing objects than in arousing, exciting, tastes and desires (notably by dramatizing the act of consumption). An economic war has broken out over the control of emotions and affection. Le capitalisme esthétique. Essai sur l’industrialisation du goût (Aesthetic capitalism. An essay on the industrialization of taste) (Editions du Cerf, Paris 2008). This book echoes the author’s previous work Goûts à vendre, Essais sur la captation esthétique (Taste for sale, essays on harnessing aesthetics), published in 2007 by Editions IFM/Regard. Olivier is a philosophy teacher and head of research at the Institut français de la mode, Olivier Assouly. Previous works include Les Nourritures divines. Essai sur les interdits alimentaires (Actes Sud, 2002), Les Nourritures nostalgiques. Essai sur le mythe du terroir (Actes Sud, 2004) and he edited the collective work Goûts à vendre. Essais sur la captation esthétique (IFM/Regard, 2007).

In the same section

	>LUXURY: AN IFM CONFERENCE IFM IN THE U.S. Olivier Assouly at the Boston French Cultural Center on February 21st
	>LE LUXE, ESSAIS SUR LA FABRIQUE DE L'OSTENTATION A new IFM/Regard book
	>TWO NEW BOOKS : LUXURY AND REFLECTIONS ON FASHION At editions IFM-Regard
	>ESTHETIQUES DU QUOTIDIEN AU JAPON Présentation vidéo du livre collectif publié aux Editions IFM/Le Regard
	>L’AMATEUR: JUGER, PARTICIPER ET CONSOMMER A new collective work from the Editions IFM/Le Regard