Authenticity as the Aesthetic Regime of Late Modern Capitalism: Insights from the Hipster Economy

Artisanal products have regained their popularity in the 21st-century post-industrial society. This phenomenon is being led by the urban ‘hipster economy’, particularly in the food and beverage sector, as highlighted by Ocejo (2017). Chris Land (2018) coined the term ‘neo-craft’ to describe this movement, which combines traditional craft with innovative and skilful production of high-quality products. Despite the symbolic and material allure of neo-craft work for middle-class individuals (Gandini and Gerosa, 2023), this revival cannot be comprehended without considering longterm taste transformations. In turn, these transformations allow the development of a framework capable of theorizing the role of taste in capitalist transformations. This presentation builds upon the theoretical contributions included in ‘The Hipster Economy’ (Gerosa, 2024), based on a corpus of 40 semi-structured interviews with neo-craft entrepreneurs in Milan. The presentation will illustrate how the ‘Hipster Economy’ ubiquitous in the cities of the West – and beyond – epitomizes a ‘hip aesthetic regime of consumption’ founded on authenticity and a ‘neo-craft’ economic imaginary of consumption, typical of post-Fordist Late Modern Capitalism. Through this illustration, it will discuss the complex relationship between aesthetic regimes of consumption operating at the structural level of the economy and economic imaginaries of consumption operating at the meso-level. The main argument is to illuminate how taste is a pivotal dimension contributing to the structuration and development of capitalist configurations, despite its historical overlook in favour of regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation.