The New Bohemia

[dropcap letter="H"]

Until the time of Louis XIV, Parisian fairs were a first-rate entertainment for its citizens, eager to discover new pastimes besides cutting a gigantic sausage. Jugglers, puppets, and wild beasts mingled with salted meats, wines, small utilitarian objects, and long-tongued illusionists. From the Middle Ages onwards, fairs prospered throughout Europe: bread and circuses for the people. Nevertheless, in England in 1683, one of the biggest attractions consisted of a stand with a printer that, for 6 pence, allowed you to buy your name printed. However, from the reign of Louis the Great, the Sun King, there was one fair that stood out from the rest: that of the residential district of Saint-Germain, which opened a new page in the history of refined shopping. Silverware and jewels, beautiful fabrics or exotic objects and products imported by the French East India Company were offered in the twenty pavilions that, for two months, created a new formula of leisure that did not include bearded women. It was there where, in 1672, coffee was first drunk in a public place. A century later, the great traveler Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, reported that nothing in England could compare to a stroll through that Parisian fair. In Saint-Germain, centuries before the existentialist spleen of noisette coffee, the night market was born —leisure duplicated— and an educated eye for beauty began to be cultivated, one that knew how to appreciate haute couture clothes as well as the joy of discovery before those traveled objects, bearers of a symbolic value beyond mere antiquity. Soon the neighborhood became the favorite of encyclopedists and literati, and modern bohemia would be born there.

In the 21st century, when technology overlaps the physical experience of shopping, cities open their entrails in search of market reformulations: places where memory is abandoned, but can also awaken startled. In Bath, next to the Georgian Green Park Station, next to old train cars, in a small enclosure, ecological flowers and tomatoes, apple pies, designer watches, message t-shirts or chocolates with intentions are offered. This is a global pattern that, whether in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Oslo, Madrid —with its Mercado de Motores—, or Lisbon, brings together young design, vegan restaurants, craft beer menus, neo-crafts, saturated color smoothies and young people on bicycles. Some call them bohos —bohemian chic, although the label is very 20th century—, others hipsters and millennials, also yuccies, the cool evolution of the slicked-back yuppies. So much so that the word bohemia carries a melancholic charge. It lacks singularity, and of course extravagance.

Normcore has uniformed a generation of young entrepreneurs who live in Nordic-inspired houses, have blonde children and vacation in Formentera. Unlike the nineties mentality, built on a treadmill on which to chew anxiety, their goal is to be moderately happy. In vulgar terms: to have quality of life. The elite of the millennial bohemia is made up of the aces of connectivity, the masters of the network, children of that Steve Jobs who wore black sweaters and sneakers, and whose last word was: "Wow!" The Zuckerbergs, Bezos, Musks, Dorseys and company, with their minimalist partners, enjoy good food and good wine, and instead of sailing through Sardinia, they travel through Patagonia.

When the middle class has shrunk, and the bourgeoisie—including its boredom—begins to be nostalgic, the social gap widens and the vast majority answers to the name of "user." The marketing of difference seeks to capture emotion and the desire to live new experiences. It delights the "client" with a sensory menu, inviting them to enjoy a new sensuality set with tuberose candles, organic biscuits, niche perfumes, and a smart screen, the tireless lover. Gilles Lipovetsky considers that "consumption today designs a cultural identity more than a social one." The multiplication of clothing chains, cafes, or bookstores offers little room for variety. In order to stand out from that army of uniformed people who dress the same all over the world, to be different and unique, you either call yourself Palomo Spain, proclaim the reign of androgynous baroque and stroll through New York as Carmen Amaya and her gypsies did years ago—roasting sardines in their Waldorf Astoria suite—or you invent an app and get rich. And then, you can be bohemian.