Paradoxical Consumption Practices and Creative Identity Work in Consumption Styles – The Concept of Reflexive Bricolage

Abstract: Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore the underlying reasons that drive consumers, belonging to a particular consumption style, to engage in paradoxical consumption practices and attempt to explain these practices. For the purpose of this study, the non-static hipster youth style was used as the empirical example of a postmodern consumption style. Methodology This study is based on eight unstructured phenomenological interviews that were conducted with individuals identified by a snowball sample with entry points in Stockholm, Cologne and Berlin. The resulting natural language data was subjected to a narrative analysis that was guided by an iterative, bottom-up approach, designed as a combination of hermeneutics and grounded theory. Theoretical perspective The Material was scrutinised under consideration of the linguistic concepts of irony and cynicism as ways to create distance, and the concepts of bricolage and semiotics to highlight the meaning that is created through novel style compositions. Empirical foundation Eight interviews with mid-to-high-cultural-capital Swedish and German members of the hipster style, that resulted in seven and a half hours of audio transcripts and 102 double-spaced pages of text. Conclusion This study presents the concept of reflexive bricolage as a method for consumers to create reflexive distance towards their own fashion discourse by (1) using paradoxical objects to create ironic or cynical distance or by (2) performing role-play in order to disappear into a virtual self. Reflexive bricolage represents a way for consumers to (a) innovate the style, (b) avoid the ridiculousness of simply acting out the style, (c) create opportunities for identity work (d) and accomplish a sense of freedom from fashion discourse.