When Melania Trump revealed her 2017 holiday decorations, I dubbed her aesthetic "the Christmas from hell," and I'm happy to report that in 2018, the first lady has upped her game, entering a circle Dante never could have dreamed up.
It is Thanksgiving week and, as always, the aesthetic essentials of the holiday shopping season have arrived in America's malls.
For example, a holiday celebration is laden with all kinds of aesthetic considerations, ranging from interior and exterior decorations to special dishes, a carefully-arranged table setting and festive music.
In fact, Christmas is the holiday with this largest overarching theme and set of aesthetic imperatives, complete with a standardized color scheme.
The new holiday movies also have their reasons for violence, and varied aesthetic approaches.
Aesthetic expectation has been ratcheting up since the 1990s when "boutique" entered the holiday lexicon and budget flights brought style-conscious destinations, such as Barcelona and Copenhagen, within close reach.
Growing up, I loved the aesthetic quality of animated pieces, like The Nightmare Before Christmas and the old holiday specials that were created with stop-motion.
Alex de Betak's holiday home in Majorca is an extraordinary expression of a father's ability to integrate his professional and aesthetic preoccupations into a child-centric family pad.
His simple animated GIFs take on a steampunk aesthetic, infusing Victorian-era wardrobes and creatures with flying saucers, gravity-defying affectations, or in the case of his holiday GIF, a perpetually swinging ornament.
