Danielle Battisti
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823256235
- eISBN:
- 9780823261741
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256235.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
Guido is a youth subculture originating in New York City’s Italian American neighborhoods. This chapter understands Guido as a collective ethnic subject defined by a signature consumption culture or ...
More
Guido is a youth subculture originating in New York City’s Italian American neighborhoods. This chapter understands Guido as a collective ethnic subject defined by a signature consumption culture or style. The chapter traces the origin of Guido to the disco movement of the 1970s; an urban Italian American youth subculture specializing in expanded opportunities for leisure-based consumption referenced to the mass media and entertainment industries. Because stylized youth identities were embedded in lived Italian American communities, consumption became an important new site for reworking ethnic cultural differences. Just as Guido symbolizes the incorporation of commodities into a new Italian American cultural identity and status, it has become a commodity that is merchandised to wider markets. Inclusion in the media spectacle—see, in particular, the reality television show Jersey Shore (2009-2012)—brings alignment with core consumption values, although it compromises subcultural boundaries. Guido is seen as part of a larger pattern that constructs Italian American difference in relation to American consumer culture while exposing ideological divisions inside the ethnic boundary.Less
Guido is a youth subculture originating in New York City’s Italian American neighborhoods. This chapter understands Guido as a collective ethnic subject defined by a signature consumption culture or style. The chapter traces the origin of Guido to the disco movement of the 1970s; an urban Italian American youth subculture specializing in expanded opportunities for leisure-based consumption referenced to the mass media and entertainment industries. Because stylized youth identities were embedded in lived Italian American communities, consumption became an important new site for reworking ethnic cultural differences. Just as Guido symbolizes the incorporation of commodities into a new Italian American cultural identity and status, it has become a commodity that is merchandised to wider markets. Inclusion in the media spectacle—see, in particular, the reality television show Jersey Shore (2009-2012)—brings alignment with core consumption values, although it compromises subcultural boundaries. Guido is seen as part of a larger pattern that constructs Italian American difference in relation to American consumer culture while exposing ideological divisions inside the ethnic boundary.
Courtney Ritter
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823256235
- eISBN:
- 9780823261741
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256235.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
Since the 1980s, the arrival of new appealing, high-scale “made in Italy” goods and images, which are expressions of a globally popular “Italian Way of Life,” have complicated Italian American ...
More
Since the 1980s, the arrival of new appealing, high-scale “made in Italy” goods and images, which are expressions of a globally popular “Italian Way of Life,” have complicated Italian American “identity shopping.” The chapter focuses on the fortunes of Italian men’s fashion in the U.S. market, by connecting the production side, based in Third Italy (the industrial districts made of networks of small firms and workshops in northern and central Italy), and the consumer side—notably, the embodiment of a reconfigured Italian American identity into designer men’s suits. The flexible and instable Italian identities produced through the influence of the 1980s and 1990s “Made in Italy” label has made Italian Americans a rife location for exploring role of class, ethnicity and consumption in contemporary culture—notions which have become all the more electrified in the current economic climate of recession and crisis of consumerism.Less
Since the 1980s, the arrival of new appealing, high-scale “made in Italy” goods and images, which are expressions of a globally popular “Italian Way of Life,” have complicated Italian American “identity shopping.” The chapter focuses on the fortunes of Italian men’s fashion in the U.S. market, by connecting the production side, based in Third Italy (the industrial districts made of networks of small firms and workshops in northern and central Italy), and the consumer side—notably, the embodiment of a reconfigured Italian American identity into designer men’s suits. The flexible and instable Italian identities produced through the influence of the 1980s and 1990s “Made in Italy” label has made Italian Americans a rife location for exploring role of class, ethnicity and consumption in contemporary culture—notions which have become all the more electrified in the current economic climate of recession and crisis of consumerism.
Vittoria Caterina Caratozzolo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823256235
- eISBN:
- 9780823261741
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256235.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
The chapter investigates the impact of dress-code changes upon early Southern Italian immigrant women in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century. Its aim is to point out the twists and ...
More
The chapter investigates the impact of dress-code changes upon early Southern Italian immigrant women in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century. Its aim is to point out the twists and turns that marked the lives of these women during their passage from an artisanal mode of production, revolving around the family unit, into an industrial consumerist environment set in an urban culture. The “change of clothes” terrain was heavily contested, sparking class, gender, and generation struggles within families and communities, locally and transnationally, but the change itself was largely understood as a necessary prerequisite to participate in the host society’s competitive labor market and larger public culture, without necessarily relinquishing or masking one’s own ethno-racial affiliation. In fact, the chapter questions the stereotypical dichotomy between tradition and fashion and proposes, instead, an interpretation that blurs the boundary between these two semantic poles of clothing and offers a deeper understanding of migration phenomena as a theoretical issue, also relevant to the contemporary debate on these topics.Less
The chapter investigates the impact of dress-code changes upon early Southern Italian immigrant women in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century. Its aim is to point out the twists and turns that marked the lives of these women during their passage from an artisanal mode of production, revolving around the family unit, into an industrial consumerist environment set in an urban culture. The “change of clothes” terrain was heavily contested, sparking class, gender, and generation struggles within families and communities, locally and transnationally, but the change itself was largely understood as a necessary prerequisite to participate in the host society’s competitive labor market and larger public culture, without necessarily relinquishing or masking one’s own ethno-racial affiliation. In fact, the chapter questions the stereotypical dichotomy between tradition and fashion and proposes, instead, an interpretation that blurs the boundary between these two semantic poles of clothing and offers a deeper understanding of migration phenomena as a theoretical issue, also relevant to the contemporary debate on these topics.
Carolyn M. Goldstein
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835531
- eISBN:
- 9781469601700
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807872383_goldstein.7
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This chapter demonstrates how home economists used the Bureau of Home Economics (BHE) to educate and advocate for rational consumption. Bureau home economists collaborated closely with university ...
More
This chapter demonstrates how home economists used the Bureau of Home Economics (BHE) to educate and advocate for rational consumption. Bureau home economists collaborated closely with university home economics professors and the American Home Economics Association (AHEA) to create a marketplace where the information required to make cost-benefit analyses of purchasing choices was readily accessible. To promote rational consumption, home economists negotiated with manufacturers and other government officials, providing input from the perspective of consumers. The chapter presents two case studies that demonstrate home economists' efforts to exert influence on both production and retail methods: the bureau's refrigeration investigations and its textiles and clothing research.Less
This chapter demonstrates how home economists used the Bureau of Home Economics (BHE) to educate and advocate for rational consumption. Bureau home economists collaborated closely with university home economics professors and the American Home Economics Association (AHEA) to create a marketplace where the information required to make cost-benefit analyses of purchasing choices was readily accessible. To promote rational consumption, home economists negotiated with manufacturers and other government officials, providing input from the perspective of consumers. The chapter presents two case studies that demonstrate home economists' efforts to exert influence on both production and retail methods: the bureau's refrigeration investigations and its textiles and clothing research.
