Coolhunting. Genesi di una pratica professionale eretica

[Autom. eng. transl.] Coolhunting: a mysterious word for many, already obsolete for professionals. A professional practice with uncertain boundaries, exercised in a multifaceted way by market researchers, anthropologists, sociologists, architects, designers, stylists, buyers, but also psychologists, journalists, fashion consultants, bloggers and photographers, a group of "trend hunters" united from the habit of using the look by trade. The image of the coolhunter has settled in the common sense in two opposite stereotypes: the "romantic" one of the young globetrotter who, armed with a digital camera and innate curiosity, goes in search of expressive signals and tendencies in the places frequented by the trendsetter communities; on the other hand, the "apocalyptic" version that points to the coolhunter as a molester of youth culture, intent on spying on the identities of teenagers to turn them into commercial phenomena. Among these Manichaean alternatives there is an empty space that the volume seeks to explore, analyzing coolhunting as a "field" of peculiar social and professional relationships born within the fashion world as heir to fashion forecasting, but largely emancipated from the fashion system to become a "heretical practice" capable of extending to many sectors of the cultural industry the neurotic need to read socio-cultural trends. Through interviews with over 40 professionals in the sector, a picture of coolhunting emerges as a cultural intermediation activity, in the sense of the French sociologist P. Bourdieu, who specializes in intercepting the distinction, ie observing the experiential practices of ever more sophisticated consumers and their imaginaries to grasp the distinctive and innovative aspects. Through a middle position between producers and consumers, the coolhunters handle information content with high cultural and economic value, that is the categories of coolness, style and lifestyle.