Fashionable Quarters in Postindustrial City: The Ticinese of Milan

Fashion, fashionable goods and services, and the social actors that produce and consume them constitute a complex, organic circuit that is transforming the postindustrial city. This article analyzes Milan’s Ticinese neighborhood and the role of its small cultural entrepreneurs through the quantitative and qualitative data that were collected during a few years of research work. The consuming city, the postmodern successor to the modern productive city, still appears very productive, not only from an economical point of view but also from a cultural and relational perspective. In particular, the small creative enterprises rooted in the territory, not only invents new goods and services or transform their meanings, but produce also new lifestyles and a climate of trust which seem to be a countertrend or a complement to the contemporary deterritorialization phenomena.