Bobo brand

Bobo brand is an informal name used to refer to a product that is sold inexpensively under a relatively unfamiliar brand name and often perceived inferior to better known brands. They may be lower in price, but not qualitatively.

A woman, seen as a mannequin, tries to find the perfect dress to wear

Since the expression Bobo brand is not referred to a specific brand, this kind of brands are invisible to the public eye. So, it describes more a lifestyle: a peculiar action of consumption that ratifies the membership to the Bobo group.

Etymology

The term Bobo is a contraction for bourgeois-bohème. Bourgeois, from Late Latin "burgus" which means "castle" (in medieval Latin ‘fortified town’), means belonging to the middle class (a social group between the rich and the poor). Bohème, from Middle French Bohême, from Late Latin Boiohaemum, compound of Proto-Germanic *haimaz ("home") and Boio- ‘the Boii’, the Celtic tribe previously inhabiting the area, means a person with quite a lot of financial means and a non-conventional lifestyle with liberal, left-wing political views, with musical, artistic, literary or spiritual pursuits and often with a Parisian attitude.

History and sociology

The term "bobo" was first introduced by David Brooks in his book Bobos in Paradise (2000) to identify the rich progressives living in Greenwich Village in New York as a contraction of "bourgeois bohemian". The expression was coined to refer to a particular French socio-economic group.

The Swinging Sixties have witnessed dispute, which has often been violent, between the middle class culture and the counterculture,[1] or in Bourdieu's view the higher status group and lower status group.[2] The creation of a third class put an end to this cultural war: the bourgeois bohemians, or Bobos emerged. Among them there were highly educated folk who had one foot in the bohemian world of creativity and another foot in the bourgeois realm of ambition and worldly success.[3]

Bobos are just normal middle-class people who cannot accept that status because they have always hated it: the bobos renounced accumulation and embraced cultivation. Retorically Bobos oppose to traditional class distinction explained in Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption.[4]

Bobo culture

France

In France the term "radical chic" was used to indicate the exponents of the so-called "gauche caviar", a term used for the first time by the French extreme right-wing press to connote in a derogatory way the new left-wing élites in power since 1981. By introducing the term "bobo", a word, which was strangely successful in France, not only it ended up semantically superimposing the expression gauche caviar, practically determining its extinction, but it also included under the same label all the other leftist voters who had a huge cultural capital, but not necessarily the corresponding economic capital.[5]

Less political and more materialistic than the group of caviar socialist, French Bobos design their lifestyles in a mix that includes luxury, middle-class classics and student-style cheap 'n' chic.[6] Bobos are rich people who are stuffed with contradictions: they have money but they want to act as if they do not have it. They own what money cannot buy which give them a total freedom of choice. They combine the free-spirited, artistic rebelliousness of the bohemian beatnik or hippie with the worldly ambitions of their bourgeois corporate forefathers and they represent an élite that has been raised to oppose élites. They are anti-establishmentarian by instinct. But somehow they have become a new establishment.[7]

China
Chinese popular t-shirts store

In 2002, the original bobo spirit has also touched a raw nerve in China's rising social élite. Urban China has always been overcrowded with social trends that usually emerge in the West in post-affluent societies where luxury is less about displaying wealth and more about simply being and enjoying. The "bobo phenomenon" provided to China a new élite with an opportunity to reconcile materialism with spirituality and élite status with egalitarian ideals in a country where the bourgeois base is statistically small and where the bohemian equation is non-existent.

According to the French and the American concepts of Bobos, they are seeking products of exquisite taste and quality or products that display the essence of a free spirit. The main contrast is that for the former two cultures, boboism is a class formation whereas for China is more a pop cultural and marketing phenomenon,[8] since it has never had any bohemians.

Bobo consumerism
Refinement in bobos' style

Bobos reject "commercial" values for the sake of "natural" values.[9] Such values, are reflected in their consumption patterns. Their consumption is part of their process of self-creation, aimed at claiming their status. In this perception consumption becomes a symbolic act rather than a necessity.     

From a consumeristic point of view, they are not likely to consider themselves within the mass consumption model, although their consumption patterns seem to portrait them as paradoxical. On the one hand, they appreciate expensive products and services, on the other hand they are worried about the environment.  They describe themselves as sustainable consumers, but their appreciation for organic products and eco-friendly services appears to be more a way to claim their own social status and showing their identity, rather than a consequence of an actual environmental concern. Their longing for sustainability is incoherent compared with their actual consumerism.[10]

It is only through particular material objects that Bobo lifestyle can be manifested. This objects include highly specific subgroups of objects of everyday use. The Bobo orientation towards products includes artisanal, custom made, or locally produced commodities in firm opposition to mass-produced goods.

Bobos tend to elevate and make aesthetically pleasing everyday objects. They search for goods and services offering exclusive treatment with large attention to small details, in order to satisfy their need to be perceived organic and anti-consumerist.[11]

Generally speaking when it comes to fashion, Bobos avoid well-known luxury brands and opt instead for less commonly known designers. They aim for a style that gives a superficial impression that they do not care too much about fashion, despite the amount of thought and sometimes money they invest in their looks.

Examples

The need of "natural" values and the creativity of Bobos have started a lifestyle which has influenced various life contexts, from the way of dressing to the local production of food.

Custom made dress
Taylor fitting
Vintage store
Local organic food market

See also

References
  1. Sassatelli, Roberta (2007). Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics. SAGE Publications Ltd.
  2. Bourdieu, Pierre (1979). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Harvard University Press.
  3. Brooks, David (2000). Bobos in Paradise. Simon & Schuster.
  4. Veblen, Thorstein (2007). Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford University Press.
  5. Iarlori, Federico (2018). "Bobo, radical chic… Chi sono davvero?". Da Vinci Post.
  6. Voight, Rebecca (2000). "In France, a New Class Reinvents the Good Life : 'Bobo' Style Has It Both Ways". The New York Times.
  7. "Are you a BOurgeois BOhemian?". The Guardian. 2000.
  8. Wang, Jing (2010). Brand New China, Advertising, Media and Commercial culture. Harvard University Press.
  9. Gans, Eric (2000). "Our Post-Postmodern Bobos". Chronicles of Love & Resentment.
  10. "Le bobo est-il le consommateur durable par excellence?".
  11. Malinowska, Anna; Lebek, Karolina (2017). Materiality and Popular Culture: The Popular Life Of Things. Routledge.

Further reading
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