The Business of Beauty: Why Aesthetics and Design Are Critical to Innovation
Jul 20, 2025
How fashion, architecture, and visual arts drive technological and economic breakthroughs
By The Agora Fund
Mouth (for L’Oreal), New York, 1986, printed 1992 | Irving Penn
What If Beauty Was the Blueprint?
Somewhere along the way, we were taught to separate beauty from utility.
Function from form.
Art from science.
Style from substance.
But what if that was a mistake?
What if beauty wasn’t just an accessory to innovation—but its very engine?
From the Parthenon to Prada, from Bauhaus to Beyoncé, from the curve of a cathedral dome to the curve of a garment sleeve—aesthetics have always carried function. And design has always moved alongside disruption.
At The Agora Fund, we believe that beauty isn’t ornamental—it’s operational. That fashion, architecture, and visual art are not soft power—they are strategic infrastructure in a world that is increasingly visual, experiential, and cultural.
Let me say this plainly:
Innovation without beauty is incomplete.
Beauty Is a Business Model
Glorification of Beauty, 1925 | Alexander Archipenko
We don't talk enough about how aesthetic intelligence drives market leadership.
Apple didn’t dominate because it had better tech—it won because it made technology beautiful.
Nike isn’t just selling performance—it’s selling design that signals identity.
Zaha Hadid’s buildings don’t just house life—they reshape how we experience it.
When a product is beautiful, people trust it.
When a brand is beautiful, people remember it.
When a space is beautiful, people gather in it.
Beauty scales.
And beauty sells.
The Forgotten ROI: Return on Inspiration
Let’s talk about architecture.
The most innovative cities in history—from ancient Rome to Renaissance Florence to Tokyo today—didn’t just build for efficiency. They built for awe.
They understood something we’ve forgotten in our obsession with optimization:
That humans are inspired by form, and that inspiration is a performance metric.
When a building lifts your eyes upward, when a dress makes you feel like your fullest self, when a painting alters your perception—that is transformational design. That is ROI that doesn’t just return capital, but returns confidence, imagination, and belief.
At The Agora Fund, we invest in those returns.
Beauty Drives Behavior
Chinese Beauties at a Banquet, 1788/90 | Kitagawa Utamaro 喜多川 歌麿
The way we design the world changes the way we move through it.
A well-designed public space can reduce violence and increase community engagement.
A culturally rooted fashion house can redefine body norms and create generational wealth.
A thoughtfully designed app or product interface can make or break a business.
Design is behavioral architecture.
And yet, we still treat design as an afterthought.
Why?
Because we’ve inherited a financial system that mistakes minimalism for mastery, and utility for value. But in truth, the most valuable companies are the ones whose beauty creates demand—before you even realize you need the product.
That’s not luck.
That’s aesthetic strategy.
The Cultural Capital of Design
Design is not just a craft. It is a language of power.
In marginalized communities, design has long been used as resistance.
Think of the zoot suits of the 1940s, the streetwear revolutions of the 90s, the architecture of Black churches, the intricacies of South Asian textile prints.
Beauty tells stories that institutions try to erase.
It archives joy.
It signals presence.
So when we invest in designers—whether architects, couturiers, or visual artists—we’re investing in memory, in future-making, and in cultural preservation.
That’s what we mean at The Agora Fund when we say the business of beauty is serious business.
What Founders and Funders Need to Understand
To the founders building in beauty, hear this:
Your design instincts are not “extra”—they are equity.
You are not less legitimate because your product is rooted in aesthetics.
You are not less investable because your audience is emotional.
You are not less scalable because your work is slow and beautiful.
To the funders:
If you want to back what lasts, fund what’s beautiful.
Stop dismissing aesthetic-first businesses as “niche.” The niche is the future. The niche becomes mainstream. And design is the differentiator in a saturated market.
Don’t wait for beauty to prove itself in spreadsheets. Fund it because it shapes the sheets.
The Agora Fund’s Position on Aesthetics
We are proudly funding:
Fashion houses that are rebuilding identity through design
Architects creating community through radical spatial storytelling
Visual artists whose work builds bridges between generations, disciplines, and worlds
We are not trend-chasing.
We are beauty-backing.
Because we believe beauty is not frivolous—it’s foundational.
Beauty Is the Future of Innovation
As AI accelerates, as automation replaces the routine, as logic is outsourced to code—what remains sacred is human touch. Human taste. Human beauty.
The curves.
The imperfections.
The boldness.
The aesthetic point of view.
Beauty is the differentiator in an increasingly indifferent world.
It is the soul in the system.
And those who understand how to design the future—visually, emotionally, architecturally—will be the ones who define it.
This Is the Business of Beauty
The world doesn’t need more formulas.
It needs more forms.
The next great innovations won’t just be engineered.
They’ll be designed.
Let’s fund accordingly.
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Written by The Agora Fund’s Founding Partner: Nina Orm