By the late Nineties, we had become a more visual nation.

Host: The city shimmered beneath the rain-soaked twilight, every window reflecting the neon pulse of commerce and artifice. In the corner of a dim gallery café, music from a distant street blended with the low hum of conversation. Jack sat near the window, his jacket damp, his eyes fixed on a towering steel sculpture outside — a twisted monolith of modern aesthetic ambition. Jeeny entered quietly, her umbrella dripping with rain, her hair clinging to her cheeks like black silk.

Host: The air smelled of espresso, wet concrete, and the faint trace of expensive perfume. The kind of perfume that whispered of taste, of status, of the new elite that had turned beauty into a form of currency.

Jeeny: “You chose quite a place tonight. So… sterile. Everything looks like it’s trying too hard to be noticed.”

Jack: “It’s called progress, Jeeny. People don’t want brown furniture anymore. They want glass, light, and design that tells the world they can afford it.”

Host: He leaned back, his grey eyes glinting under the soft light, the edges of his voice carrying both mockery and admiration.

Jeeny: “Progress? You mean conformity in designer clothes. Peter York said it best — by the late Nineties, the nation became visual. We stopped feeling and started displaying. Everything turned into spectacle.”

Jack: “And what’s wrong with spectacle? Civilization’s always been about display. The Romans built marble forums for status. The Egyptians, pyramids. We build glass towers. Same instinct, just cleaner lines.”

Host: A faint smile curved on Jeeny’s lips, but her eyes stayed heavy, filled with something like sorrow.

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Those monuments were about legacy — faith, mortality, collective memory. What we build now is about self. About showing off what we can buy, not what we believe.”

Jack: “You’re romanticizing the past again. People have always been vain. You think a baroque palace wasn’t just as much of a show-off statement as a Dubai penthouse?”

Host: A long silence hovered between them as a waiter placed two cups of coffee. The steam rose slowly, curling through the cold air like an unspoken truth.

Jeeny: “Maybe. But vanity used to at least carry craftsmanship. The Sloane aesthetic — all that brown furniture and symmetry — it had soul. It tried to preserve class, even if outdated. Now, everything’s been flattened into global sameness. Airports, cafés, apartments — all look like clones.”

Jack: “That sameness is the price of globalism. You can walk into a café in Tokyo or London and feel at home. That’s unifying.”

Jeeny: “Unifying, or numbing? We’ve traded distinct identities for a sterile brand. Our taste isn’t ours anymore — it’s curated by algorithms, dictated by brands, reinforced by influencers.”

Host: Jack laughed softly, shaking his head, the sound low and rough like gravel under footsteps.

Jack: “You sound like someone mourning a lost religion. The truth is, people like being told what looks good. It simplifies life. No more doubt, no more taste anxiety — just follow the trend.”

Jeeny: “But doesn’t that kill the imagination? If art and architecture only follow capital, then beauty becomes another market metric. Remember what happened with the YBAs — the Young British Artists? They sold rebellion like perfume. Damien Hirst’s dead animals in glass tanks became luxury statements for collectors. Rebellion became brand identity.”

Jack: “And that’s genius! Turning transgression into profit — that’s what evolution looks like in a capitalist world. You call it corruption, I call it adaptation.”

Host: Jeeny’s hands trembled slightly as she lifted her cup. The rain outside turned heavier, streaking down the window in silver ribbons. The light from passing cars danced across her face, catching the anger rising beneath her calm tone.

Jeeny: “Adaptation? Or surrender? When everything is commercialized, nothing means anything. Art becomes décor. Design becomes signaling. Even pain is aestheticized — think of how poverty gets romanticized in ad campaigns.”

Jack: “That’s not new, Jeeny. We’ve always turned suffering into symbols. You think Goya painted war just for empathy? No — he painted it to immortalize horror. That’s also a form of showmanship.”

Jeeny: “But at least Goya wasn’t selling his paintings to oligarchs who wanted to hang them beside wine cellars.”

Host: The tension thickened. The café’s chatter dimmed into the background, leaving only the steady pulse of rain and the clinking of porcelain. Jack looked out the window, his reflection merging with the city’s glowing skyline — man and metropolis, one machine of desire.

Jack: “You talk like purity still exists somewhere. But purity died with the internet. Everything is filtered now — even rebellion. You can’t fight the visual age; you can only learn its language.”

Jeeny: “Then what happens when everyone speaks the same visual tongue? When everything’s optimized, styled, branded? Don’t you feel we’re losing silence, imperfection, mystery — all the things that make culture breathe?”

Host: The clock ticked in the background, marking the slow erosion of words into reflection. Jack rubbed his temple, his voice lower now, more worn.

Jack: “Maybe that’s just evolution. Culture moves forward by killing its parents. The Sloane look was killed by minimalism; minimalism will be killed by something else. It’s natural selection.”

Jeeny: “Natural? No. It’s consumption disguised as evolution. What we call ‘taste’ now is just marketing with better lighting.”

Host: She leaned forward, her brown eyes bright with quiet fire. Her voice trembled — not with weakness, but with deep conviction.

Jeeny: “You think beauty is about currency, but beauty used to be about care. My grandmother’s old wooden table — carved by hand, uneven, scratched — it has more truth than a thousand glass sculptures. Because it holds memory, not money.”

Jack: “Memory doesn’t pay the rent, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “No. But it builds meaning. And meaning is what we’ve forgotten to value.”

Host: The rain softened. The music shifted to a slow piano piece. Jack’s expression changed — the arrogance fading, replaced by something quieter, almost tender.

Jack: “You know… sometimes when I look at these galleries, I wonder if we’re just building prettier cages. All this glass and design — it’s like living inside our own reflection.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The visual nation you defend has turned into a mirror maze. We’re addicted to appearances — not to connect, but to be seen.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, shimmering with fragile truth. Jack looked down at his hands, the skin pale under the warm light, as if the city’s brightness had drained something human from him.

Jack: “So what’s the alternative? Go back to brown furniture and doilies?”

Jeeny: “No. Just remember that beauty isn’t about being admired — it’s about being honest. We can build forward without erasing the textures of our past.”

Host: The sound of the rain ceased. The city outside glistened under new clarity, its lights refracted into a thousand tiny reflections. Jack and Jeeny sat in the stillness, their coffee cold but their minds warmed by an unexpected harmony.

Jack: “Maybe taste shouldn’t be about money or nostalgia. Maybe it’s about awareness — knowing why you like something, not just that you’re supposed to.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Awareness is the new luxury. The kind that can’t be bought.”

Host: They both smiled faintly, the tension dissolving into quiet understanding. Outside, the sculpture gleamed again — not as a monument to vanity, but as a mirror reflecting the strange, beautiful contradictions of a world always rebuilding its own idea of beauty.

Host: And as they left the café, the city’s lights shimmered on the wet streets, like fragments of an ever-changing canvas — a reminder that even in the most visual of ages, it is still the unseen that defines what is truly beautiful.