Perfume vs. Cologne

The careful assemblage of moving pieces that makes up our known history. Systemic colorblind racism, toxic masculinity, Western colonization, and class discrimination, among a host of other destructionary practices, have shaped who gets to wear what—and get away with it. In this post-industrial age of consumption, all you need is the spending power to get a good costume and, of course, be born into whiteness to be cool. When done correctly, you can seemingly transcend class and status.

We have entered an era of culture-based conflict that has the uncanny power of camouflaging the underlying and dominating powers that shape our lived reality. This is no accident. The very idea of “the hipster” emerged through the writing of Norman Mailer in his essay The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster in 1957. In it, Mailer connects the lifestyle and aesthetic choices of the beatniks to a white desire to embody marginalized black culture. The contemporary hipster culture has its roots in a white disaffection with 20th century American capitalism. Post-World War II era youths were disheartened by the prospect of doing consumerist managerial work, but also would not partake in working-class labor, a choice unavailable to their non-white counterparts. To be a maker or an artist or a writer, however, was a way to opt out of the system entirely.

By borrowing from African American culture and positioning themselves as class non-conforming and by appropriating working class style, hipsters could choose to never inhabit the consumerist world. The “white negro” was the original hipster, a borrower of culture, repackaged and displayed for white consumption and ownership. This must be understood as a type of violence, a radical form of cultural appropriation. The contemporary hipster stands upon a mountain of marginalized black bodies that were once the manifesters of forced and underappreciated creativity.

Director MADELINE MONTOYA

Styling CAROLINE HUNDLEY ERIN NOH

Photography CELIA GERBER