What Taste Actually Means (And Why We Confuse Taste, Class, Style and Trends)

In this episode of Home and Hosting, we explore what taste actually means and why people so often confuse taste, class, style and trends.

Conversations around taste always spark interesting discussions online, so we unpack how the words taste, class, style, and trends have started to blur together and why that causes so much confusion.

Style is talked about constantly, trends move faster than ever, and taste often gets avoided entirely because it can feel loaded or exclusive.

We also explore how social media has contributed to the TikTok-ification of design language, where everything becomes an “aesthetic”. When trends are packaged as aesthetics, it can make it seem like participating in the right trend means having taste, when in reality, those are very different things.

From there, we look at how taste actually develops through exposure, environment and experience. We touch on ideas from sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and the cultural landscape he was writing about in the late 1970s, and how the internet, globalisation and the pace of modern media have changed how people encounter culture today.

We also talk about why wealth can broaden exposure but does not automatically mean better taste, and how broader exposure can sometimes be treated as authority in the same way education or expertise can be used to signal status.

Most importantly, we explore how taste is shaped by the environments we live in and the experiences we have. It is not something reserved for a particular class or price point.

If you have ever felt unsure about the language around taste, design or aesthetics, this episode offers a thoughtful conversation about how to understand these ideas and apply them to your own home and daily life.