Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

This Year’s Model: Fashion, Media, and the Making of Glamour

2016; Penn State University Press; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/jasiapacipopcult.1.1.0109

2380-7687

Justine Taylor,

Fashion and Cultural Textiles

Fashion is always on the hunt for the next big thing. The newest and freshest form of everything, including youthful good looks. What is known in the fashion industry as “the look” is ecapsulated in the face of a model or muse that embodies an ideal form of beauty at a particular historical moment. These beauty ideals shift over time and are impacted on socially and culturally inscibed mores. In the 1950s, when French designer Christian Dior launched “the new look”—a silhouette that accentuated the waist and emphasized the bust—Lisa Fonssagrives was a popular “cover girl” for Vanity Fair and Vogue magazine. Her svelte body, high cheekbones, and aquiline nose made her a role model for a generation of women. Although the concept had not yet been coined, Fonssagrives is considered to be the first “supermodel” superceeding Naomi Campbell, Gisele Bündchen, and Cindy Crawford. By the 1960s, waif British model Twiggy with her large eyes, long false eyelashes, and shirt cropped hair replaced Forsasagrives as the “it girl” of the times. The hourglass figure was substituted for an androgynous slender body shape that persisted well into the ’90s until Kate Moss appeared in Calvin Klein’s advertising campaign for his underwear, jeans, and unisex perfume CK One. Her pale skin and emaciated features became known as heroin chic, and became popularized in fashion media as a reaction against the healthy and vibrant look of the ’80s supermodels. This elusive “look,” which you either had or you didn’t, can now be attained and maintained through the use of cosmetic enhancement surgery; botox and chemical peels now hold back the ravages of age. Yet how realistic are these images of bodily perfection when digital media technologies can alter a model’s look simply with a computer program? It is undeniable that the fashion model maintains a powerful hold on popular perceptions of ideal beauty, yet the question begs how does a “look” or a particular model emerge as a beauty icon in consumer culture?Building on her previous scholarly work on the fashion model and the modeling industry, Elizabeth Wissinger examines the debates about Western beauty ideals and the objectification of women in the fashion modeling industry, or what Wessinger calls “glamour labour.” Arguing that with the onslaught of digital media, the crafting of a look and the maintenance of an image has never been easier, as consumers are now able able to create the once unattainable standard of beauty that models have come to represent. Why do models represent ideal beauty standards and not cinema celebrities? Wessinger writes that even though the cinema celebrity or the musical pop star involves some aspect of glamour, modeling is one of the direct examples of glamour labour for several reasons. It seems that the only credential that is required of a model is a pretty face and a slim body, unlike acting or singing that requires some form of talent. According to Wissinger, modeling is framed by a corporate culture that seduces consumers into engaging with images on a daily basis. And whilst celebrities often engage in glamour labour, models always do. They have come to represent the embodiment of a particular “look” encapsulated in a fashion brand par excellence. Whilst celebrities may endorse a brand by appearing at a particular event such as the Hollywood Oscars wearing a designer dress, they retreat back into their own personal lives, whereas models personify the brand. Kate Moss was Calvin Klein. Edie Campbell, who won the model of the year at the 2013 British Fashion Awards, is the face of Yves Saint Laurent.Wessinger uses in-depth interviews with models and casting agents as well as fashion editorials and catwalk shows to portray the ways in which glamour is constructed in fashion media by using models as conduits of ideal perceptions of beauty. The body of a fashion model is commodified and requires a stringent maintenance regime and a particular amount of body work to keep up with appearances: dieting, waxing, shaving, and regular gym attendence. Unlike the celebrity body, which can be fashionable and desirable, the fashion model’s body is always in fashion and is “often the measure of all bodies in the public eye, the norm from which bodies deviate.”1 The examination of what consitutes the fashionable “look” is at the heart of this book and is descibed by Wissinger as not just the visible quality of a person, but their personality, appearance, reputation, and performance as models. In other words, the look is about possessing a certain charisma or charm that fluctuates and changes in different environments.Divided into nine chapters, Wessinger explores the modeling industry through various lenses and how modeling has reflected changes in fashion environments such as the catwalk show. Since its emergence in the the early nineteenth century, the performance of fashion has shifted from one that required the model to leisurely walk around a couturier’s studio, parading garments for wealthy clients to today’s spectacular productions using digital technologies such as live streaming. Advertising has also impacted the representation and practice of modeling through messages that are embedded in images that target consumer spending. Wissinger traces the early days of modeling when couturiers shaped models into acquiring the “look” of a fashion brand to photographers directing models on what to wear and how to feel in a shoot during the ’50s and ’60s. Capturing the “look” today is much more elusive as fashion brands vie for consumers’ attention in a fast-paced enviroment that has impacted the body’s changeabilty through self altering practices such as surgery and dieting. Wissinger explores the language of modeling management through the advice given to models in published modeling manuals to the ways in which the modeling industry’s global expansion has increased competion amongst scouts and clients. Written in an accessible style, this book provides an “insider’s” glimpse of one of the world’s most glamourized professions and its influence on representations of beauty and glamour.