Why can’t students and young workers afford to live in the city?

The answers to this question could be found in several directions, which often are not excluding but rather complementing each other. Low salaries, too high rents, soaring inflation rates. Everything nowadays has become too expensive. And we’re not just talking about ‘extra’ activities related to leisure, entertainment, or anything else that can add to basic needs. But for young people, it is becoming increasingly difficult even to do a basic activity necessary for subsistence, such as grocery shopping. Young students and workers find themselves stealing food from supermarkets, stores, or restaurants because they are struggling with financial problems. The feeling shared by today’s contemporaneity is certainly discouragement for those who have to carve out a place for themselves in the world, those who are trying to make important decisions in an unfavourable climate. It is them, the students who choose to take the path they were told would set them up, would give them a future. How many futures are we talking about now? What future do they aspire to? Is there such a thing as a future?

C41 presents Spoiled Future, a fashion editorial produced by students from Polimoda: Ariam Andom, Ida Andersson, Teresa Alpoim, Maureen Den Os, and Jared Patrick Walters. The editorial was produced in the context of LEONE’s course part of the Master in Art Direction at Polimoda. Polimoda represents the high training in the fashion industry in an internationally recognised center of excellence, located in Florence, the heart of one of the most important production areas of Made in Italy.

Young people worry about their future. Housing is their principal concern according to research. The word ‘spoiled’ conveys two messages: firstly, it hints at the idea that the now young people have been indulged by their parents, having been raised in houses bought which much more ease than they will ever be able to. Secondly, it refers to the fact that they have a ruined idea of their future. Struggles, hopes, and dreams emerge, yet resulting in a poetic paradox.