French Bobos design their lifestyles in a mix that includes the rarest luxuries, middle-class classics, senior citizen string-collecting strategies and student-style cheap ‘n’ chic.
Bobo sightings began in the French press late last summer, but almost all the reports failed to acknowledge that the term doesn’t have its origins in France. It comes from a book by David Brooks called « Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, » published this year in the United States.
Brooks’s definition of the group as « highly educated folk who have one foot in the bohemian world of creativity and another foot in the bourgeois realm of ambition and worldly success ».
He points out Bobos’ shortcomings — « self-absorbed and narcissistic » — while praising their ability to live a pleasurable and constructive life without suffering from guilt, nor closing themselves off to outside influence.
