Daily Inspiration Quote by Jacques Barzun

Barzun lands the joke with a shrug: “Of course.” That little throat-clear turns a cultural critique into something like common sense, as if the absurdity of fashion is so obvious it barely deserves argument. The line is built on a sly reversal. We like to tell ourselves clothes are technology - protection, utility, adaptation. Barzun insists they’re theater first, and the “impractical” isn’t an accident but the point. Stiff collars, delicate shoes, restrictive silhouettes: each is a small tax paid for belonging, status, and the privilege of not needing to work with your hands.

Then comes the barb: “except in Tahiti.” It’s a comedic escape hatch that doubles as indictment. Tahiti stands in for a fantasy of climate, ease, and minimal social constraint - a place where the body can be dressed for weather rather than for hierarchy. The subtext isn’t really about Polynesia; it’s about how Western modernity manages to turn even basic needs into elaborate signals. Barzun, an educator and historian of culture, is doing what he often did: treating taste as an institution with rules, penalties, and myths. His quip suggests that “practicality” is not a neutral standard but a cultural story we tell while we lace ourselves into discomfort.

Read in context, it’s also a warning against taking fashion’s rationalizations at face value. When a society is anxious about class, gender, or respectability, it will happily sacrifice comfort to make those boundaries legible. The laughter is the point of entry; the cynicism is the lesson.