Should I create an enumeration or individual flags

Why don't you just store it in the main user table (keeping a unique ID will be a nightmare otherwise), and have an ACTIVE bit field that you include in your indexes (you can filter if you like).

It won't really slow down access to the table since your indexes will be able to very quickly sort by active/inactive but you also avoid the headaches caused by trying to "roll your own" identity field.

I personally would use a model similar to the following:

The product table would be pretty basic, your main product details:

create table product
(
  part_number int, (PK)
  name varchar(10),
  price int
);
insert into product values
(1, 'product1', 50),
(2, 'product2', 95.99);

Second the attribute table to store the each of the different attributes.

create table attribute
(
  attributeid int, (PK)
  attribute_name varchar(10),
  attribute_value varchar(50)
);
insert into attribute values
(1, 'color', 'red'),
(2, 'color', 'blue'),
(3, 'material', 'chrome'),
(4, 'material', 'plastic'),
(5, 'color', 'yellow'),
(6, 'size', 'x-large');

Finally create the product_attribute table as the JOIN table between each product and its attributes associated with it.

create table product_attribute
(
  part_number int, (FK)
  attributeid int  (FK) 
);
insert into product_attribute values
(1,  1),
(1,  3),
(2,  6),
(2,  2),
(2,  6);

Depending on how you want to use the data you are looking at two joins:

select *
from product p
left join product_attribute t
  on p.part_number = t.part_number
left join attribute a
  on t.attributeid = a.attributeid;

See SQL Fiddle with Demo. This returns data in the format:

PART_NUMBER | NAME       | PRICE | ATTRIBUTEID | ATTRIBUTE_NAME | ATTRIBUTE_VALUE
___________________________________________________________________________
1           | product1   | 50    | 1           | color          | red
1           | product1   | 50    | 3           | material       | chrome
2           | product2   | 96    | 6           | size           | x-large
2           | product2   | 96    | 2           | color          | blue
2           | product2   | 96    | 6           | size           | x-large

But if you want to return the data in a PIVOT format where you have one row with all of the attributes as columns, you can use CASE statements with an aggregate:

SELECT p.part_number,
  p.name,
  p.price,
  MAX(IF(a.ATTRIBUTE_NAME = 'color', a.ATTRIBUTE_VALUE, null)) as color,
  MAX(IF(a.ATTRIBUTE_NAME = 'material', a.ATTRIBUTE_VALUE, null)) as material,
  MAX(IF(a.ATTRIBUTE_NAME = 'size', a.ATTRIBUTE_VALUE, null)) as size
from product p
left join product_attribute t
  on p.part_number = t.part_number
left join attribute a
  on t.attributeid = a.attributeid
group by p.part_number, p.name, p.price;

See SQL Fiddle with Demo. Data is returned in the format:

PART_NUMBER | NAME       | PRICE | COLOR | MATERIAL | SIZE
_________________________________________________________________
1           | product1   | 50    | red   | chrome   | null
2           | product2   | 96    | blue  | null     | x-large

As you case see the data might be in a better format for you, but if you have an unknown number of attributes, it will easily become untenable due to hard-coding attribute names, so in MySQL you can use prepared statements to create dynamic pivots. Your code would be as follows (See SQL Fiddle With Demo):

SET @sql = NULL;
SELECT
  GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT
    CONCAT(
      'MAX(IF(a.attribute_name = ''',
      attribute_name,
      ''', a.attribute_value, NULL)) AS ',
      attribute_name
    )
  ) INTO @sql
FROM attribute;

SET @sql = CONCAT('SELECT p.part_number
                    , p.name
                    , ', @sql, ' 
                   from product p
                   left join product_attribute t
                     on p.part_number = t.part_number
                   left join attribute a
                     on t.attributeid = a.attributeid
                   GROUP BY p.part_number
                    , p.name');

PREPARE stmt FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;

This generates the same result as the second version with no need to hard-code anything. While there are many ways to model this I think this database design is the most flexible.