RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING A “HIPSTER” IN A WARTIME IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The focus is on the fashion practices of Ukrainian youth, so called ‘hipsters’, during the war. In the essay we move beyond understanding hipsters as a meaningless youth subculture of cultural appropriation and recombination. Instead, we consider hipsters as a force of resistance in cultural and war front lines. Ukrainian events proved that hipsters are not only about sophisticated consumer choices and humane ecological changes. A new public aesthetic for Kharkiv is considered on the example of the Nikolsky shopping center, which was built taking into account the new demands and tastes of hipsters. Despite its recent history, Nikolsky suffered from the bombings, but managed to reopen its doors and became one of the symbols of Kharkov's resilience and rebelliousness. The hipster rebellion is considered as the creation of a new liberation aesthetic and ethic in Ukrainian society. The key features of fashion behavior in the context of deglobalization processes are outlined, and vectors for future research are proposed. The work was done with support of the Solidarity Fellowship, sponsored by the Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna).