Fashioning Models

The fashion model's hold on popular consciousness is undeniable. How did models emerge as such powerful icons in modern consumer culture? This volume brings together cutting-edge articles on fashion models, examining modelling through race, class and gender, as well as its structure as an aesthetic marketplace within the global fashion economy. Essays include treatments of the history of fashion modelling, exploring how concerns about racial purity and the idealization of light skinned black women shaped the practice of modelling in its early years. Other essays examine how models have come to define femininity through consumer culture. While modelling's global nature is addressed throughout, chapters deal specifically with model markets in Australia and Tokyo, where nationalist concerns colour what is considered a pretty face. It also considers how models glamorize consumption through everyday activities, and neoliberal labour forms via reality TV. With commentaries from industry professionals who experienced the cultural juggernaut of the supermodels, the final essay situates their impact within the rise of brand culture and the globalization of fashion markets since 1990. Accessible and highly engaging, Fashioning Models is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion and related disciplines.

Joanne Entwistle is Senior Lecturer at King's College London, UK. Elizabeth Wissinger is Associate Professor at the BMCC campus of the City University of New York, USA.

Introduction Joanne Entwistle, London College of Fashion, UK and Elizabeth Wissinger, BMCC, City University of New York, USA Models as Brands Joanne Entwistle, London College of Fashion, U and Don Slater, London School of Economics, UK Part One - Histories of Fashion Modelling From Artist's Model to the 'Natural Girl': Containing Sexuality in Early Twentieth-Century Modelling Elspeth Brown, University of Toronto, Canada 'Giving Colored Sisters a Superficial Equality': Re-Modelling African American Womanhood in Early Postwar America Laila Haidarali, University of Essex, UK Fashion Modelling in Australia Margaret Maynard, University of Queensland, Australia Performing Dreams: A Counter History of Models as Glamour's Embodiment Patrícia Soley-Beltran, University of Edinburgh, UK Part Two - Behind the Image: Contemporary Fashion Modelling Work and Practices The Figure of the Model and Reality Television Stephanie Sadre-Orafai, New York University, USA Made in Japan: Fashion Modelling in Tokyo Ashley Elizabeth Mears, New York University, USA Modeling Consumption: Fashion Modeling Work in Contemporary Society Elizabeth Wissinger, BMCC, City University of New York, USA Fashion Modelling: the Industry Perspective In discussion with Cory Bautista, Agency Director, New York Models, USA; George Speros, Agent, Women's division, New York Models, USA; Doreen Small, Vice President, General Counsel Ford Model Agency, NY, USA; Melissa Richardson, founder and owner of Take2 Model Management, London, UK Index