'I'm not a cool guy. I'm a guy who is studying cool'
Sometime in the ’90s, cool became a commodity. Much maligned as they are, today’s version of the hipster has its precursor as far back as the ’40s and ‘50s, with the hepcats and the beatniks, then the hippies, the ravers and the alternakids — all countermovements to the perceived square mainstream, all affectedly disaffected, anti-authoritarian and anarchistic, underground and ineffably cool. But with the rise of the consumerist, networked society, the proliferation of microtrends and the flattening of the world, “cool” became a highly marketable concept, co-opted by sneaker brands and cola companies who forced an identification with whoever were the fashionably trendoid kids of the moment. But the kids are complicit in this phenomenon as well: they are the ones who feed the typically uncool execs with new definitions of cool, practically dictating the direction of advertising. The middlemen between culture and corporations are called coolhunters — they stalk the streets and filter online forums for potential explosive trends, analyzing people’s attachments to a particular brand, band or philosophy. Coolhunters essentially monitor the zeitgeist.
The protagonist of William Gibson’s 2003 novel Pattern Recognition is a sought-after coolhunter with a physical allergy to logos, making her some kind of marketing empath. A scene where she walks into Harvey Nichols has her suffering an attack when she encounters a Tommy Hilfiger display. “My God, don’t they know? This stuff is simulacra of simulacra. A diluted tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row, flavoring their ready-to-wear with liberal lashings of polo knit and regimental stripes. But Tommy surely is the null point, the black hole. There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul.” Three snaps in a Z formation to my man Gibson.
On Monday, a coolhunter by the name of Dr. Carl Rohde from Fontys University in the Netherlands flew to Manila to launch the Philippine chapter of his worldwide Cool City Hunt project with the students of The School of Fashion and the Arts (SOFA). I don’t know what the audience expected a renowned coolhunter to look like, but he was the last person you’d expect to be hip to the hizzy, being in his 50s and wearing a professorial three-piece suit. My friend, a meta-hipster himself, commented that he resembled a Dutch Tim Gunn. The professor introduced the class to the concept of coolhunting, defining “cool” as “what is attractive and inspiring with future growth potential” and presenting seven overarching trends under which several student-provided examples were given. When an image of a Tommy Hilfiger ad was flashed, we knew something was not right in the state of Holland. Or more likely that his presentation was a few years old, or even likelier, it was a submission from some kid in Guangdong, China, where Tommy knockoffs still have currency on Canal Street, because all Filipinos know that Tommy stopped being cool when the designer allegedly made racist comments — back in 1996!
The point of the lecture, however, was not to tell us what the latest bleeding edge trends are — obviously, a 21-year-old fashion student would be leagues ahead of the curve — but instead channel students’ awareness of what’s going on in their surroundings into an online global resource where people can check in to what’s considered hot by other Cool City Hunt participants. Students have one month to upload examples of cool, with explanations of why they’re cool, to www.scienceofthetime.com, and exceptional budding coolhunters will receive a certificate from Fontys University and Science of the Time. Who knows, they may even be tapped by corporate clients of Dr. Rohde, which include Heineken, Microsoft, Unilever, Lee, Wrangler, Eastpak, Nike and BMW.
After the lecture, The Philippine STAR had a chat with Dr. Rohde about the science of catching cool.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR: What is the purpose of this Cool City Hunt Project?
DR. CARL ROHDE: I’m at an age where I’d like to give back. Life is good to me, I’ve been around, I travel a lot. I love to teach students what I’ve learned in 25 years of trendwatching, especially at a school like this — it’s creative, young and entrepreneurial. Cool City Hunt is an educational project, giving our experience and innovation knowledge to students. At the same time they work with us. So far we have 7,000 students worldwide sharing trends. They learn from it and also get ideas for their own start-up businesses.
Are student submissions greatly different from those of professional coolhunters?
Well, yes, the level is different. If you’ve done this for 20 years, if you’ve written five books with some bestsellers worldwide, you’re going to be better than a student.
But do you think someone of that age will have the same eye for what’s cool out there as a young person who is actually part of the scene?
That’s why we also love students. The best students will have written 10 books in 20 years’ time, and it’s great to see them coming up. We also invite around three of the best students, if they really love it, to come work with us.
Do you consider yourself a cool guy?
I’m not a cool guy. I’m a guy who is studying cool and that is something else. I don’t want to go out this evening with the students, I’m 50-plus, you know. Meanwhile I love to study it. I travel a lot, I meet the most interesting people worldwide, fantastic and inspiring students, and that’s cool. So I’m not cool, but there’s always something cool in my surroundings.
Are there instances when you think like, “Oh my God, this is what’s cool nowadays?”
Of course there are things, especially a lot of things on the Internet where I think, “My God!” But I also realize when I was young, my parents thought, “My God, does he like that?” So every generation should have the right to define its own meaning of cool. At the same time, older generations have a right to criticize.
What did you consider cool when you were a youth?
Do you really want to know? (Laughs) When I was young, trendwatching didn’t exist. I was a sociologist. I was a hippie in the late ’60s in Europe. I was always interested in trends — how do men change, how do women change. I worked hard, and I loved it. I lived in a hippie commune, then I got married and had three kids very young. Then my executive career started, and trendwatching became fashionable.
When did it become fashionable?
In different phases. First I was a sociologist, then I got asked to do more commercial work, and they didn’t call me a sociologist anymore, they called me a trendwatcher. I continued to stay in the university because I love academics. It’s different from just saying, “These shoes are cool.” That’s not my style, I want to know why it’s cool. What do you learn from it? Why is Paris Hilton cool? What is she saying to the world? That is my academic perspective. Companies like to know what the gadgets are but also what’s really behind the gadgets. I do a lot of brainstorming on the experience economy — what does it mean for brands, holidays, education and politics.
Some of the examples you showed were cool around five years ago. Trends come and go so fast, how do you manage all this information?
You have the gadgets, which are popular for a few weeks then it’s over. You have the broader stuff, which is popular for a year, then you have the very broad mentality trends, which is what we’re focused on here. For example, the experience economy, it’s already been eight years since it’s been written about in a book, and it’s still here. In two years time, we still want to have great experiences, but the way they illustrate those experiences will change. The Internet is the same — the social web will not be over in three years time, but will continue with new examples.
There will also be a countermovement, people saying there’s too much stuff on the Internet, so we’re closing off. But it will be a tiny countermovement compared to all the people who will move on to the new manifestations of the cool Internet.
There will always be an anti-trend if things are very big. We must listen to those things because if you understand the motives and mentalities behind the anti-trends, you can learn again. Now we have an anti-Facebook movement, which is telling you something about privacy and anti-commercialization, about not wanting to be everywhere all the time.
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For information on the Cool City Hunt, go to www.scienceofthetime.com.
