Introduction. Fashion and Celebrity Culture: Body Spectacle and the Enlarged Sphere of Show Business

Abstract

This journal issue, devoted to the convergence between celebrity culture and fashion culture, investigates the modes of verbal and visual narrations revolving around attractive personalities. How does this narrative factor, which supports the celebrity system, operate within and influence the world of fashion, and how have the stories about fashion (films, biographies, but also publicity, gossip, events, spaces, architecture) influenced the world of show business? The authors tackle, from different angles, the ambivalences of the notion of ordinariness vs. exceptionality, setting them against the background of contemporary communication, publicity, social networking, and social environment.