Taste-based exclusion gave way to profit as fashion’s governing principle.

Evidence

In the aftermath, Wintour quipped, “I think if we just remain deeply tasteful and just put deeply tasteful people on the cover, it would be a rather boring magazine!” Her comment implicitly labeled Kim and Kanye as distasteful, but it also conceded that taste had become an impediment to profit. This statement alone marked a turning point for the Condé Nast empire and signaled the twilight of cultural capital as an exclusionary concept. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 369

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s core thesis about ‘omnivore monoculture’ — Wintour conceding taste is an impediment to profit is the era’s death-of-the-sellout mechanism in miniature.
• SEED: The moment taste stopped being exclusionary and became an impediment could anchor the counter-case article about the 21st century’s actual signature.

Related

• Taste standards fell to profit motives as cultural capital lost exclusionary power (similarity 0.91)