Which is kind of funny because I don't think I could explain what it is if someone asked me. I'd probably spend five minutes trying, realize I wasn't getting anywhere, and end up pointing at a photo or an old Ralph Lauren campaign and saying, "That."

I've always relied on it though. Probably more than I realized. People have asked me over the years why I like one image more than another, or why I think an athlete should wear one thing instead of something else. Why I want to move the light six inches. Why I'd rather change the location than the wardrobe. Sometimes I can explain it. A lot of the time I can't. The answer usually sounds something like, "I don't know...it just feels right."

That used to make me uncomfortable. If I couldn't explain it, then maybe I didn't actually understand it. Maybe I was just guessing. I don't think that's true anymore. Actually...I'm still not sure. I think what I've realized is that taste doesn't really live in language. At least not for me. It lives somewhere else. Somewhere between instinct and experience. Which sounds incredibly vague now that I read it back.

The weird part is I don't remember deciding to pay attention to these things. I don't remember consciously studying proportions or how fabric moves or why one room feels completely different than another. I just noticed them. I'll still catch myself doing it. I'll be sitting at a restaurant and stop listening for a second because someone walked by wearing a jacket that fit perfectly. Or I'll see a campaign and have an immediate reaction that something feels off. Not bad. Just...off. And then I'll spend the next ten minutes trying to figure out what my brain noticed before I did.

Sometimes it's the styling. Sometimes it's the casting. Sometimes it's none of those things and it's just a feeling I can't shake. That's probably the frustrating part. Or maybe it's the interesting part. I'm honestly not sure.

I think we spend so much time trying to explain creative decisions when, in reality, some of the best ones happen before we've found the words for them. I don't think I've ever walked onto a set with a checklist in my head. It's more like I walk in with a feeling of what I want people to experience, and then I spend the rest of the day chasing it. Sometimes we find it. Sometimes it shows up in the last five minutes when the light changes, or someone laughs at the wrong time, or the wind decides to cooperate for about thirty seconds. Those are usually my favorite moments. Which probably says something.

I've also been wondering if taste has less to do with having good opinions and more to do with paying attention. Really paying attention. Because I think that's all I've been doing for the last fifteen years. Looking. Watching. Collecting little things that never seemed important at the time.

Maybe that's all taste is. Or maybe it's just my version of it. I don't know.

I do know that if you asked me to define it tomorrow, I'd probably fail again. I'd stumble through the answer, change my mind halfway through, contradict myself once or twice, and then point at something completely unrelated and say, "See...that's what I mean."

Maybe that's enough.