Abstract
On the basis of qualitative empirical data gathered by means of semi-structured interviews with former fashion models, secondary oral sources and autoethnographical data, in this paper I analyze the embodiment and representation of beauty ideals as the result of bodily and emotional work carried out by fashion models. Given that models supposedly embody the aesthetic and identitary ideals proposed by media and advertising, they constitute key informants to explore bodily and identity performances in agreement with hegemonic aesthetic patterns, as well as to analyse the construction of such ideals. Models’ bodily work illustrate more general processes carried out to adjust to gender presentation norms, and testify to the performance that sustains beauty representation in media. Their experiences reveal their own strategies to adapt to and, at the same time, resist objectification, their diferente degrees of bodily self-identification according to gender, and their critical vision on the ethics of image production. The role of silence in the performance of beauty - a technique to empty models of the personality in order to facilitate the projection of desire sustaining the construction of glamour - is broken in this anthropological incursion to fashion’s backstage .
Highlights
On the basis of qualitative empirical data gathered by means of semi-structured interviews with former fashion models, secondary oral sources and autoethnographical data, in this paper I analyze the embodiment and representation of beauty ideals as the result of bodily and emotional work carried out by fashion models
Models’ bodily work illustrate more general processes carried out to adjust to gender presentation norms, and testify to the performance that sustains beauty representation in media. Their experiences reveal their own strategies to adapt to and, at the same time, resist objectification, their diferente degrees of bodily self-identification according to gender, and their critical vision on the ethics of image production
Fecha de recepción: 14 de noviembre de 2011 Fecha de aceptación: 20 de febrero de 2012
Summary
On the basis of qualitative empirical data gathered by means of semi-structured interviews with former fashion models, secondary oral sources and autoethnographical data, in this paper I analyze the embodiment and representation of beauty ideals as the result of bodily and emotional work carried out by fashion models. La negativa a ser filmadas viene dada por la separación que estas profesionales de la imagen hacen entre su persona y su representación visual Como ya he indicado, el permiso para ser entrevistadas me fue concedido en base al interés compartido en la temática del estudio: una exploración de la profesión de modelo desde el punto de vista de las propias profesionales y el contraste que presentan sus vivencias con la construcción del glamour para el que prestan su imagen. La persona pública y práctica profesional de las modelos presenta un caso extremo, y por tanto clarificador, de los procesos de adecuación del cuerpo y la identidad a patrones de género que afectan a todas las mujeres en general. Quería desmitificar el concepto de ser perfecta, que en pocas palabras es un montón de mierda Janice Dickinson (2004: 5, énfasis de la autora)
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