The Greek New Middle Class and Fashion in Late Modernity: Between Individualized “conformity” and “creative” Appropriation

In this chapter, we use the empirical findings of a qualitative sociological research on middle-class consumption and consumerism in Greece before, during, and after the economic crisis (2009/2010–2018). By adopting the bottom-up form of inquiry methodology, we analyze the research subjects’ repertoires of consumer action and discourse, in which their ambivalent attitude towards fashion is highlighted. This attitude seems to move between individualized “conformity” to what is promoted (both by the mainstream fashion system and by users and “creative cultural entrepreneurs” of social media), stylistic preferences and their “creative” appropriation by the subjects. The coexistence of the attitude of “individualized conformity” and “creative appropriation” indicates how the subjects, through consumer practices, seek to construct the self as a skillful chooser, that is, to constitute themselves as worthy subjects, capable of personal, successful choices, and again to prove themselves as “competent consumers”, subjects capable of playing successfully in the field of fashion and consumption.