For a young Bill Clinton, glamour was the Kennedy White House. For a young Andy Warhol, glamour was a dust jacket author photograph of Truman Capote. For a young Jay-Z, glamour was as simple as a teacher’s new refrigerator with an ice maker. What is this elusive phenomenon that combines yearnings and dreams and mystery? How can the same word apply to a self-destructive F. Scott Fitzgerald and a self-preserving James Bond? Perhaps you love glamour, or perhaps you think glamour is a harmful illusion. Either way, you are unlikely to be immune to the appeal of what is “known to be false but felt to be true.” Why do we seek out glamour, and what are we looking for? Bloomberg View columnist Virginia Postrel, author of The Power of Glamour, visits Zócalo to discuss the nature of glamour—and why we cannot do without it.

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Photo: Toni Frissell Collection, Library of Congress