Designer [...]

[Baker, John]

        "Designer religion" dates back at least to 1992.  From the London Times, Dec. 5, 1992:

>>Yet the evangelicals have a knack of turning platitude into reality. A
flick through the glossy pages of the evangelical magazine Alpha
illustrates the passion of their attack: "the confused spirituality
of the Royal Family", a probe into the "heresy" of television
wrestling, and a fierce attack on the "blatant sin of Madonna" vie
for the attention of the reader. This is designer religion with a
vengeance.<<

        Although 1984 might be a bit early for "designer religion," I'm not convinced that it would be anachronistic.  "Designer --" was certainly being used in that sense by 1984; I see "designer water" in the Jan. 9, 1984, issue of Time Magazine, and Barnhart apparently has it all the way back to 1980.  Dave Barry wrote about "designer educations," a meaning that is spot on for designer religion, in a March 1985 column:

        >>So I say the yuppies represent a threat to society as we know it,
and I say we need to do something about them. One possibility would
be to simply wait until they reproduce, on the theory that they'll
give their children the finest clothing and toys and designer
educations, and their children will of course grow up to absolutely
loathe everything their parents stand for and thus become defiant,
ill-dressed, unwashed, unkempt, violently anti-establishment drug
addicts, and society will return to normal.<<


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: Towse [mailto:self at TOWSE.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 8:45 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Designer [...]


Someone asked in another forum

> The word 'designer' has evolved rapidly from a term for custom-made
> clothing to standard products that just have an expensive name sewn on
> them, and recently to customized products, notably 'designer genes'
> for engineered babies and 'designer education' for self-directed
> study, etc.
>
> I would like to use the term 'designer religion' in a story set in
> 1984. I'm afraid it would be anachronistic, though. I've heard the
> term used recently to describe a system where you choose beliefs that
> are compatible with your personal and political beliefs.

I mentioned that designer jeans (Jordache &c.) were available
c1979, but that I didn't know when we segued into designer-genes,
designer-religions and what-all.

Anyone have some more concrete information?

Sal
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