Be Cool! Aesthetic Imperatives and Social Practices

We are pleased to present the special issue of ZMJ dedicated to the International Zonemoda Conference 2019 “Be cool! Aesthetic Imperatives and Social Practices” which was held in Rimini last May. The Conference was organized by Gioia Laura Iannilli, Stefano Marino and Giovanni Matteucci for the International Research Center “Culture Fashion Communication” of the Department for Life Quality Studies. The special issue contains a selection of the papers presented during the Conference, edited by Gioia Laura Iannilli and Stefano Marino. Being cool ain’t easy: this is all the more true today, when current reality has undergone a process of widespread aestheticization. In general, by “aestheticization” we refer here to the fact that in the last decades the aesthetic has apparently undergone an incredible process of extension and dissemination, and has fundamentally become an (often pressing) “imperative” while playing a relevant role in social practices, inasmuch as appearances and the expression of taste preferences have become determining factors for them. In this framework fashion surely plays a pivotal role: in fact, not only is fashion intrinsically connoted by the priority of appearances and taste over other features of experience, but it also does so while intertwining the aesthetic and the social implications it has. And this is presumably why the imperative “Be Cool!” is supposed to work on both levels and has such a deep impact on our reality. On the one hand, to be cool means having certain aesthetic features, inspiring certain behaviors and being connected to certain tastes, while on the other hand to be cool also means being able to make the latter convey towards good everyday practices.