History of the Fashion Model

by Ariane Ankarcrona

This history summary below appears in full here.

Christy Turlington, Chloe, 2006

1391: Queen Isabella of Bavaria gives a life-size doll to Queen Ann of Bohemia to show clothes on a human form. Later called “model dolls,” they became popular gifts among aristocracy and are used as tools for designers.

1852: Wife of dressmaker Charles Worth sported his designs amongst Paris aristocracy

Early 1900s: Lady Duff Gordon of Lucille's grooms young women. Models not received in polite society. Mannequins considered menials.

1924: New selection methods of models by nationality. Opening of first modeling agencies followed.

Top models for Vogue, Irving Penn, 1947

Late 1940s: Dior’s New Look. Top 12 models all resemble this aesthetic eg. sophisticated, mid-thirties.

1950s: Chanel’s Total Look. Chanel uses herself and family members as models or young aristocrats styled on the designer’s looks and attitudes.

The images featured are combined historic photos of the actual models accompanied by Natalia Vodianova portraying the models for Vogue, May 2009. Above Jean Patchett.

Late 1950s: ready-to-wear (prêt-à-porter)industry begins. New class of clients means models no longer corresponded to high society looks. Mass produced clothes of prêt-a-porter lines homogenizes ideal body type thanks to ready-made patterns.

Twiggy

1960s: Models/photographers are new elite of beautiful people. “natural” models ie. sexy, friendly and relaxed. Opposite to earlier “haughty” unrealness of couture models. Exotic models used.

Donyale Luna, Read V Magazine's take on diverse muses

1970s: Tougher looks due to economic recession. Model fees incorporated into advertising product they were endorsing.

Verushka

Penelope Tree

Early 1980s: demand for models with energy and “sense of fun” due to economic buoyancy. Increase in American consumers of European fashion brought Californian look ie. tanned, “natural” , healthy.

Mid/late 80s: Supermodels. Huge fees but safe-bet as represented global ideals of beauty. Surge in media attention of fashion industry.

Lauren Hutton

The supermodels posing for Peter Lindbergh 1990, and Kate Moss, 1993

1990s: Displacement of natural, healthy looks. Grunge style, waif, blasé attitude= Anti-fashion statement. Girls not women became ideal, modeling careers started much earlier.

Late 1990s: Trend of modeling with “real people” , those with interesting lives or “unusual “ features.

2010: Revisionist aesthetics, return of the natural

Lara Stone above is larger than sample size and represents a possible shift in type. At a 2010 conference Anna Wintour said: "Each and every one of us needs to realise we are all responsible for models' health," Wintour said, via WWD - adding that designers will have to help end the "tyranny of [sample] clothes that just barely fit a 13-year-old on the edge of puberty.” Wintour went on to say that unhealthy body standards have meant that the past decade couldn't create supermodels, like the kind we saw in the '90s. And so: "Most [models] work only when they have the uberslim physique of the very young, stop getting jobs when they fill out and hence don’t last long enough to develop public personalities, like the '90s supermodels did. As a result, more magazine covers and lucrative beauty contracts have gone to singers and actresses," she observed.

Model & Star Power

by Ariane Ankarcrona

Caroline Trentini by Patrick Demarchelier, Vogue, September 2007

“Fashion Models as Ideal Embodiments of Normative Identity,” Patrícia Soley-Beltrand

Patrícia Soley-Beltran began modeling and acting at age 17 in her native Spain. In 1989, after ten years in the industry, she stopped modeling to focus on her education. She currently lectures throughout Europe on a graduate, post-graduate and doctoral level in feminist theory, sociology of the body, and the sociology of style and fashion. Her article entitled “Fashion Models as Ideal Embodiments of Normative Identity” was published in 2006 in Trípodos, the journal of The Blanquerna School of Communication Studies in Barcelona, Spain, while she was a lecturer there.

Models behind the scenes by Steven Mesiel, Vogue Italia, January 2009

With Soley-Beltran’s experience in the modeling world, she is able to present both a personal and scholarly examination of the iconic status of models today. Inevitably tied to this iconic status is the model as a role model; not only for the female identity but also for cultural values in general.

Verushka, 1960's

The model as a public persona is multi-faceted. Layers of meaning can be added to this persona through nationality, class, race etc. Soley-Beltran gives a historic view of the gradual introduction of these elements and the powerful indicators they have now become. Today, the body is a sign of both personal and social identity and for a model, both must be carefully controlled. Soley-Beltran gives a good comparison of a model’s card (with measurements and differently styled images) to the several layers of cultural meanings eg. race or class that can also form the composite of the model’s ‘look’ or persona.

Daria Werbowy

Models are no longer merely clothes-horses parading down a catwalk with a blank expression. Instead, they have now become the physical embodiment of an ideal life where perfect beauty lives side by side with social excellence. The best models are those that can embody all these different types of ideal lives and identities. Clothes can be key in revealing these different characters and the possession of numerous garments can be seen as the multiplying of personalities. Models who become the clothes they wear, perhaps adapting her own personality to complement the garment, are those that will last the distance in the modeling world. “Chamaleonism” is the word Soley-Beltran uses to describe the models who possess this modeling characteristic.

Natalia Vodianova, fruit stand to fantasy life

2009 "Faces of the moment"

Soley-Beltran believes the underlying notion in our society today is that, “self-confidence can be achieved through conformity to beauty standards, and that such conformity is rewarded with self-deserved assertiveness and a better social position”. The ideal of modeling is not only related to the income of models but to the imagined possibilities that come with being part of the modeling world, a mythical dream promoted by designers. In all, a fanciful idea of womanhood paired with the desire to have an existence beyond limitation. Or as French sociologist, Jean Baudrillard calls these models, “simulacra”: sophisticated artifacts performed and marketed by a team of professionals that become the reference for gender perfection and desirability as if they were ‘real’.

Above Michael Kors inspires models to think of themselves as Oscar winning celebs, demonstrating the unrealistic expectations and identity conflict common to models

Model’s hegemonic beauty has become a method of defining the normative standards for satisfactory identity. Their seemingly effortless glamour presents a whole spectrum of symbolic meanings, whether it be class, race, power- whichever element the observer chooses will symbolize an ideal self. In Soley-Beltran’s eyes, beauty continues to be a very powerful myth fuelled by the modeling industry and one that needs to be dispelled soon.

“Celebrities, Culture and a Name Economy,” Brian Moeran

Brian Moeran was born in 1944 and is currently a professor of Business Anthropology at the Copenhagen Business School where he was previously a professor of Culture and Communication. He specializes in Japanese Anthropology but has been more recently addressing Western popular culture with an emphasis on celebrities and ethnography. This paper was written in 2002.

Chloe for Chloe, associating and expanding both the celebrity and product brand

Moeran’s main focus in his article is the relationship between culture and economy and the role played by today’s celebrities in that relationship. Celebrities can act as both cultural and economic intermediaries who help producers enter into the world of consumers. Cultural economy is a broad term and for the purpose of his article, Moeran narrows his field of research down to the ‘name economy’ ie. the part of the economy occupied by the entertainment or promotional industries.

Celebrities are names that need no further explanation. They are household names whose reputations join together producers and consumers by means of the products they are associated with. The name economy is further reinforced by liaisons between male and female celebrities, whether they be permanent or not. Romantic liaisons, musical liaisons, design liaisons- it doesn’t matter as long as they are noted and talked about. These crossovers often enter different celebrities into different industries and allow for them to extend their renown.

A celebrity endorser is defined as “any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement.” In 2002, when this paper was written, 20% of all U.S. TV commercials featured a celebrity. Today, this number has no doubt risen.

There are a few criterion that Moeran presents that are vital for a successful endorsement. Firstly, there must be a match between the celebrity and the product he or she endorses. A professional athlete for example would be a great match with a sportswear company like Nike. There must however be credibility and expertise behind that athlete, or the effectiveness of the campaign is limited. Producers also look for personality, likeability, and attractiveness when choosing their celebrity but this is shown to be less influential on the consumer.

Moeran also points out some negative aspects to having a celebrity endorser attached to your company. Firstly, there is the potential that audiences will remember the celebrity but not what product is being endorsed. Secondly, a celebrity closely identified with a product could get in trouble or do something controversial that garners the company bad press. On the flip-side, celebrities can help improve a company’s image if it has been tarnished in some way.

Moeran then goes on to further explain and develop the role of celebrities as cultural intermediaries. Celebrities very easily perform across different media and therefore help link different cultural spheres. Models who seamlessly transition from runway to recording studio to Broadway stage could be an example of this. Without celebrities, many products would struggle to search for something that differentiate themselves. With a celebrity endorsement, the commodity is given a ‘cultural personality’ and a link between producer and consumer. Also celebrities help to explain and support the meaning of a product that the manufacturer wants to convey to the consumer. Finally, the celebrity aesthetically gives the commodity a whole new look through recognizable advertising campaigns and other media forms in which they appear.

Celebrities today are getting paid enormous amounts of money to endorse a particular brand or product. Companies make a significant investment and these investments have to make sense. Luckily, share prices usually go up when a company announces an exciting new celebrity endorser as that celebrity will simultaneously help culture and the economy produce name products and the need for such products.

“The Philosophy of Andy Warhol”

The emphasis of Andy Warhol’s chapter entitled ‘Fame’ is the reason for being famous, or not famous and how one ends up either way. What makes that person so special? Warhol believes it is one’s ‘aura’. An aura is something that cannot be explained or described by someone who has it, or is believed to have it by someone else. If you know someone too well then it is impossible to think they have an aura because there is no longer an air of mystery surrounding them.

Warhol's portrait of Halston, 1974

Warhol also discusses all the other elements that come along with fame, for example, live interviews and crazy fans. He believes fame is changing today, that different kinds of people are now made famous and not just movie stars. At the end he emphasizes the importance of always knowing what you are worth and not only in terms of yourself and your fame.

Warhol is known for the phrase everyone will be famous for 15 minutes!

Sexual Power

by Samantha Shaw

Mario Testino, V 59. The author points to a conflicted hegemony. Different images send different messages especially about women.

“Gender and Hegemony in Fashion Magazines: Women’s Interpretations of Fashion Photographs” by Diana Crane

“Gender and Hegemony in Fashion Magazines: Women’s Interpretations of Fashion Photographs” by Diana Crane was published in Volume 40, number 4 of The Sociological Quarterly in 1999. This article is a companion piece to a study that examined women’s relationships with the images presented in fashion magazines. Crane questions the validity of the assumption that fashion magazines encourage conformation and dissatisfaction among women through analyzing the data and responses of women who participated in the study, while acknowledging the various theories that exist connecting women’s self-worth and the images presented in fashion publications. Crane’s key question pertains to whether or not fashion theorists’ assumptions are accurate in their perception of hegemony in fashion magazines.

Both types of women exist, JCrew 2009 and Terry Richardson 2009

In one image both mother and sex appeal, Testino, V 59

Crane begins the article by addressing the conception that society views Fashion as a form of hegemonic oppression, however, this assumption may not be true. In order to explore this, Crane sets forth the parameters for interpreting the study which includes “Understanding the impact of these images requires consideration of (1) the concept of hegemony as it applies to texts created for women and (2) theories of media reception and their conceptualization of women as readers or interpreters of media materials” (Crane 1). She goes on to elaborate on the concept of hegemony, taping in to feminist theory that supposes that feminine hegemony incorporates male desires. However, various contradictions exist with in the readings of hegemonic femininity. Through these contradictions, Crane presents the concept of conflicted hegemony, which indicates that there is no standard, but rather consumers choose from various interpretations of fashion, which can be ted to social class or ethnic background. These options can be tied to the oppositional forces of modernism and postmodernism, two methods of thought that prevail throughout our culture. In order to complete this exploration, Crane discusses various media theories relating to women’s reception of fashion magazines, but ultimately concludes that there is no consensus to how contemporary women perceive fashion.

In the following section, entitled “Postmodernism, Feminism, and Fashion,” the author acknowledges the various agendas of fashion magazines, that include the portrayal of youth culture, female power and social change, and creation of identities. She uses Vogue to illustrate the evolution of the fashion magazine from purveyor of fashion to purveyor of media material. By the 1980s Vogue had become markedly sexualized displaying partial nudity and emphasizing sexual provocation. This signifies a change in function of fashion photographs.

In the end the study’s results display the validity of the theory of conflicted hegemony. Many women did not rely on fashion magazines as a directional source, but rather used a combination of sources to shape their perception of fashion, including friends and other media sources. Theses sources, when weighed against one another, equate to fashion’s conflicted hegemony. The study on which Crane reflects upon questions our notions of the hierarchy of power in fashion and begs the reader to reconsider his or her own power within the fashion system.

About the author: Diana Crane is a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to this article, she gained success with her book Fashion and its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing. She has a particular interest in the intersection between the sociological aspects of the fashion industry and empirical data. Although she is probably best known for her work in the theorization of fashion, she also has published works concerning global media and arts policy.

“Flash Trash: Gianni Versace and the theory and practice of glamour” by

Réka C. V. Buckley and Stephen Gundle.

The work of Gianni Versace can often be called vulgar, tasteless, and over the top. His legacy, although one of considerable success is often overshadowed by allegations of gaudy designs and an anti-feminist, over sexualized aesthetic. Réka C. Buckley and Stephen Gundle approach the legacy of Gianni Versace with a different eye, through using the theory and practice of glamour to explain his success as a designer and businessman.

The authors set forth a means for explaining the work of Gianni Versace by first defining glamour theory and then tying it to the work of Versace. Walter Scott, a romantic novelist who wrote novels concerning the Middle Ages, introduced the idea of glamour into literary language. The aspect of escapist fantasy in these novels appealed to the bourgeoisie. The idea of glamour explained the desire of realistic situations with out inconvenience. The late 19^th and early 20^th century welcomed a more consumer driven economy, where products associated with desirable characteristics (beauty, wealth, youth, etc) were becoming the objects of desire of the bourgeoisie. This idea carries through to the golden age of Hollywood were wealth equated to morality. However, it is in the realm of the French courtesan that glamour and fashion truly intersect.

The French courtesan was the beginning of the commercialization of sex. Courtesans essentially marketed themselves through purveying a specific image. “…they possessed precisely the qualities of beauty, desirability, fashionableness, and wealth that attracted attention. The courtesan fitted so well with the new order because she was a professional of make-believe and illusion in an era in which appearances became substance” (Buckley and Gundle 6). The courtesan was the perfect combination of attributes, resulting in the concept of modern glamour.

Buckley and Gundle explain Versace’s rise to prominence during the 1970s fashion revolution, in which consumer aspirations and economic growth made luxury ready to wear possible. In the 1990s, Versace developed his aesthetic of over the top glamour for which the brand is known for today. Versace experienced incredible success as result of Italy’s lax tax system and control over brand image. The new rich flocked to Versace, as his designs represented an idealized image of jet set glamour.

Versace’s association with glamour is dependant upon many factors. Buckley and Gundle highlight “Image and Celebrity, ” “The Versace style,” and “Gender and Sexuality” as factors contributing to Versace’s glamorous image. Versace was calculated purveyor of his brand, creating associations with celebrities in order to cultivate an image of glamour. Furthermore, Versace’s work was heavily influenced by the decadence of the Italian renaissance, which inevitably associates the brand with power and aristocracy. Finally, Versace favored a non-conformist woman, who embraced her sexuality and powers of seduction, harkening to the courtesan.

The authors conclude by tying Versace to the features of glamour they had defined earlier, ultimately deciding that Gianni Versace use of paradoxical vulgarity and elegance, emphasis on desirable images and excess, and construction alluring models of femininity place Versace with in the legacy of modern glamour. It becomes apparent through a close reading of this text, that Versace’s success is inextricably tied to the commercialization of sexual power.

About the Authors: Flash Trash: Gianni Versace and the theory and practice of glamour” is found in “Fashion Cultures: Theories, explorations and analysis” and was published in 2000. Stephen Gundle is the author of “Glamour: a History” which was published in 2008. Réka C.V. Buckley is a professor at the University of Portsmouth specializing in film and visual studies.

The Power of Appearances, Part II

by Katherine Hom

See the recent history of fashion photography here.

Steven Meisel, State of Emergency, Vogue Italia, 2006

“Doing Fashion Photography,” Erica Lennard

Erica Lennard is a photographer born in New York in 1950. She has published 14 books and has worked with Perry Ellis, Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, and Rolling Stone. She is also well known for her work photographing gardens.

In this article Lennard’s reflections on her work reveal many of the ideas central to realism. When shooting models she looks to bring out a “personal quality” by being quiet and only directing their movements in an attempt to make them relax enough to be natural. She looks for a feeling of vulnerability. She prefers hair and makeup to be simple and unartificial and draws inspiration on how to pose models from real life, film, and paintings.

Erica Lennard's photo for Perry Ellis in the 1980's

Reflecting the blend of between art and photography that realism takes she states, “I consider my fashion photography an extension of my own work as an artist.” And wants to portray women that others can relate to “instead of frozen hard sex symbols habitually seen.”

She also prefers to work in natural light, out in the direct sunlight. She finds magic in the ability of light to transform reality and wants to document what happens in a place when light falls in a specific way. All her pictures are done outside of a studio in the available light.

She also notes the difference between doing work for European magazines versus American magazines. In Europe, magazines give the photographer total freedom to choose models, locations, etc while the editor simply chooses clothes and oversees shooting. In America the editors want to maintain a certain look and models are chosen from a small group of typical girls used.

“Escaping to Reality: Fashion Photography in the 1900s,” Elliott Smedley

Elliott Smedley is a UK fashion editor and stylist and has worked as a styling consultant to Burberry since 2002. This article, “Escaping to Reality: Fashion Photography in the 1900s”, was published in Fashion Cultures: Theories, explorations and analysis, by Stella Bruzzi and Pamela Church Gibson in 2002.

In the 1990s a realistic style became prominent in fashion photography. This included capturing models “behaving like human beings”, doing realistic activities. According to Smedley, this shift in aesthetics had a lot to do with the link between fashion and art. He states that the fashion world will periodically try to shed its overly commercial image, and in doing this, plays towards art. In this case, the art was documentary photography, which aims to represent human experience and plight. Since fashion photography usually creates fiction and the ideal, this lean towards documentary photography opened up a whole new realm of possibility.

Nan Goldin, Matsuda, “Naked in New York,” 1996

To understand why the style of realism in of the 1990s was so significant, we need to look back at the history of fashion photography. As a reaction to fashion illustration, photography grew extremely popular during the 1920s and 1930s. Readers of magazines wanted to see the fashions displayed thoroughly and faithfully rather than as a decorative art. Photographs were seen as realistic depictions without artistic distortion. However, it really just continued the trend of creating visual fantasy that women could aspire to. Also using aristocrats and socialites furthered this concept. Movements such as modernism and surrealism influenced fashion photography, introducing graphic and geometric, and dream-like photographs. Realism inspired a less formal approach, depicting models for the first time in motion. Static poses began to disappear, replaced by “moments of narrative, fleeting impressions and relaxed actions.” Also prevalence of commercial pictures over elitist imagery reflects the influence of sportswear and Hollywood on fashion photography. As their potential to be commodities increased, models became uniformly youthful and unblemished.

The 1940s and WWII was a pivotal moment for realism in fashion photos since displays of excess and frivolity were discouraged and fashion itself moved into a more austere realm to ration goods. Lee Miller was a key photographer of this period, praised for shooting women in wartime and everyday situations in British Vogue. During the 1950s Richard Avedon captured looks, mannerisms, and gestures, and Irving Penn focused on the anthropological and sociological elements of fashion photography. Trends that emerged included the “spontaneous snapshot” and the use of location rather than studio. Still many of these photos contained a “fiction of reality”, an imagined image of what a women would look like to others in this situation.

Bob Richardson, French Vogue, 1960's

In the 1960s the role of fashion photography became involve with discussions of race, sexuality, and class. The “Terrible Three”, David Bailey, Terence Donovan, and Brian Duffy emphasized sexuality in their photographs. Models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy, known for their ‘ordinariness’ became role models for the new generation as the dominance of couture dissipated. Fashion imagery of metropolitan youth culture reinforced the idea of the “liberated new woman”. Bob Richardson added a new side to this woman, creating snapshots of her despair and melancholy while located in wealthy and glamorous settings. He created a tableauz with realistic themes. Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton continued these themes in the 1970s. They created highly stylized and explicit images, which embodied cultural debates like the eroticism of women and fantasies and myths of sexuality. They were accused of being exploitative and regressive.

Meanwhile a new side of documentary photography was emerging through recording punk street style of the time. This first occurred in photojournalism, in an attempt to document the new social phenomenon. In 1978 Vogue came out with Not Another Teen Punk Book, featuring portraits of punks. This inspired the magazine i.D. in 1980, that showed photographs of people spotted on the street rather than models, turning the focus onto the fashionable ordinary person. The idea of living a fashionable lifestyle democratized fashion. Realism stepped in to fill the space between the ordinary fashionable person and the superhuman ‘supermodel.

This style of realism in the 1990s was a deliberate ‘anti-glamour’, labeled the ‘school of London’. The contructed image was rejected for the “artless, the unstaged, the semi conscious, the sexually indeterminate and the pubescent”. The precise photographic techniques of the past were abandoned. This style had roots in the insecure political climate and global recession of the time. Major photographers included Corinne Day, David Sims, Juergen Teller, and Nigel Shafran. Corinne Day was one of the first with her series of Kate Moss from The Face in 1990 entitled ‘The Third Summer of Love’. She was shown as a young free-spirited girl, in simple relaxed clothing, near nudity in a natural way, lacking grooming, with playful gestures, squinting and laughing. These supported themes of innocence, teen spirit, and immaturity. There was something very intimate in these photographs, as if this was a private unstaged moment. The technique as well as the bond of friendship that Day an Moss shared resulted in this combination of realistic documentation and fashion photography. From this optimistic innocence Day’s style shifts towards pessimistic loneliness and urban alienation. In the series ‘Under Exposure’ for Vogue in 1993, Moss is shown alone in a cold starkly furnished flat, half dressed. There are connotations of poverty and a sense of isolation, alienation, and boredom. There is a grim reality present here signaling to awkwardness and uncertainty of youth. Next to glossy glamour photos in Vogue, these images and themes stood out stronger. Where once fashion photography was primarily concerned with creating a fantasy and unattainable ideal, this new documentary style challenged traditional practices. What is told instead is a “narrative of misfortune”. In its voyeuristic ‘real-ness’, these images could be discomforting and their context can confuse the intention.

Corinne Day, Third Summer of Love and Under Exposure

A major influence was Nan Goldin, who created a photodiary of her life and friends as an art piece. While Goldins snapshots convey an intimacy, the intimacy of Day’s photographs scould be seen as exploitative possibly because the role of fashion photography had always been to sell something and never a reflection of something really true. Rather than being seen as an art piece in revealing situations and needs of less fortunate, it might be seen as promoting a destructive ideal since fashion photography traditionally sells a lifestyle. Goldin faced this problem as well in her work for Matsuda and Helmut Lang. As art and fashion photography blend, it is difficult to keep the two from bleeding into one another. Validity of personal word can come under question, as if working in fashion somehow compromises its sincerity.

Nan Goldin, Ballad of Sexual Dependency and Matsuda below

An image by Juergen Teller brings up another side to realism. In the photo the model, a bruised and battered Kristen Mcmenamy, is nude with the word ‘Versace’ written in lipstick in a heart shape on her body and set up against a very contrived backdrop. Teller seems to suggest the exploitation of women by the fashion image. However this almost comes off as a parody of realist fashion photography. By mixing realist snapshot aesthetic with the contrived backdrop, his ‘realist’ message is displayed as inauthentic, putting other realist images under question as well.

Juergen Teller

Rolard Barthes said that this new movement creates a new social value in which the private becomes public in an attempt to “affirm what has been lost through virtual reality.” These images “seem to reinforce the bonds of human community by reclaiming lost areas of compassion and humanity”. In this way fashion photography has taken on the function that photojournalism has lost, with the ability to reach a wider audience than art or social documentary photography could. These images challenges conventional ideals, democratizes fashion, and forces us to ask questions and address wider concerns. 
 


The contemporary result is Inez & Vinoodh, Before After for V magazine showing both real life and studio.