Before is the New After
“Frugal is the new glamorous,” Kelly Marages writes in the Washington Post. “Haven’t you heard? The haves have finally been granted access to the one club the have-nots had owned exclusively, and they’ve turned it into a fabulous party. Enter the ‘recessionista.’ Whereas a year ago this person may have attended the gala du jour in a brand new designer frock, she’s now wearing one recycled from the back of her closet. She is learning to cook at home–maybe even from vintage Depression-era recipes! And she’s conspicuous about her non-conspicuous, discount-store, coupon-carrying consumption. She’s a cousin, perhaps, to the type of person who totes a ‘This is Not a Plastic Bag’ bag, except that, rather than crusading sanctimoniously for the environment, she’s crusading for her own cultural relevance.”
Point taken. Nothing’s funnier than a culture’s false urgency. But just as “Frugal is the new glamorous” and “Cheap is the new black,” as the New Yorker snipes, on a more reflective level, isn’t Before the new After?
I’ve had an uneasy suspicion all along that black and white Before photos in Architectural Digest aren’t fair. Shouldn’t they be in color, too, like the wondrous Afters? So often now, when I peer into the monochromatic loneliness of the Befores condemned to enmity and derision, I feel wistful for their original taste and understatement, their essential greenness and sincerity. Can’t Befores ever be beautiful, too?
Maybe, for example, a given Before was shot in unflattering light. Maybe Before would have looked better if it too had been photoshopped and air-brushed, like After.
I met an After once. I was writing a story about a Victorian townhouse that had been gutted and re-styled to the limits of our contemporary taste. I walked straight into this After, agog. This After really made a good first impression. This After was the bomb. Then I realized that many things about this After were a tad disproportionate. The sun-drenched granite island was big enough to conduct three simultaneous autopsies. I actually tried to visualize it as a Before, in black and white (as all Afters are doomed to be one day). There was a whiff of conspicuous consumption, even if it was up to code.
On the whole, a Before costs less than an After.
Maybe it’s a good thing right now that we recessionistas have to think twice before jumping in and creating shimmering Afters with the bold look of Whatever. Maybe we ought to live with our Befores a little longer, and let the moment, our lifestyles, and the ghostly rhythms of the original structures or landscapes tell us what to do. Maybe we should give credit to old-home buyers, or even non-home buyers, for being green.
Because Before and After are not mutually exclusive–they’re interactive, improvisational. It’s not Before instead of After, or After instead of Before–but a simultaneous, thoughtful pairing. Maybe it’s the feeling we get whenever we look across an ocean or lake at sunset. Before and After exist together, like a beautiful twilight.
Colin Sargent, Editor & Publisher