thinking is the new black

I’ve meaning to discuss “The Rise of the Aldirati” for some time.

Alas, alak, been super busy at uni with the 3rd year dissertations, marking, and an in-house post-grad conference so no time for blogging recently. I’ve had a paper accepted for The Transforming Audiences conference in September, at Westminster, and although I was accepted into The Emerging Scholars programme at the IAMCR in July in Mexico City, (and totally stoked about it), after a long, hard think I decided enough is enough, and I’m not going to do anything this summer which deviates from sitting my viva. Even more good news, although I must remain schtum, I think an external examiner has been identified. So watch this space…

A topic which I meant to write something on about 6 weeks ago is an article which appeared in The Sunday Times Style supplement back in April called “The rise of the Aldirati”.

They’re affluent, middle class — and shop in discount stores. Meet the new breed of savvy consumers who are turning belt-tightening into a fine art

I love the word Aldirati and ’The Italian’ told me the other day to update my blog because American Apparel is no longer his favourite shop. Apparently his favourite shop is now Aldi, followed closely by the pound shop.

So taken was I with this word, that I decided to use the article in a discourse analysis workshop I ran the following Tuesday.  My own analysis is that the article is full of brand names and marketing lingo that construct a lifestyle than is quite the opposite to belt tightening and the term actually plays out through the cultural codes of fashion. I’m also fascinated by  how legitimacy is given to the notion of no frills affluence by consistent reference to marketing institutions and consumer experts.Not quite an echo chamber, more a small voice shouting into a bucket. So are the Aldirati just exercising common sense, or is there something more along the lines of ‘ironic consumption’ going on? It is something to do with what Bourdieu calls the ideology of natural taste. Why are the middle classes obtaining gratification in low end consumption habits? Ironic distance allows the Aldirati to buy cheap parma ham whilst avoiding  dirtying themselves with the cheap food = obesity = lazy citizen , helpless poor person who can only be saved by Jamie Oliver or a reality TV program that convinces them towards their better selves, whilst not killing their children sort of thing. 

In 2009 Vogue started up the more dash than cash  feature  again after a break of many years and what with the net-a-porter.com team  launching theoutnet.com (love love love!!!) there is something very interesting going on  with clothing and economics, and  I hope to be examining the relationship between the fashion industry and the more cultural manifestations of the recession soon.

There is a bit of a ‘thing’ going on out there of people creating word clouds of their research.

Good ones to be found on Almost PhD,Media @LSE &social sim

Here’s one from mine. It’s only one chapter, more to come I’m sure.

Love wordle.