Representation of women in visual representation system of fashion photography structuralized by male gaze

Abstract

This study is a theoretical research to investigate a methodological framework for analyzing the representation of women in fashion photography. For this study, this article attempts to develop a conceptual framework of the visual representation system through Lacan’s gaze theory, and analyze the representational aspects of women configured by gendered characteristics in the visual representation system. Structuralizing the visual representation system based on that theory, the gaze, the image/screen, and the subject of representation in the Lacan’s triangle diagram are replaced by the camera as the signifier of gaze, the representational image, and the seeing subject respectively. In the visual representation system, the camera creates a male-oriented visual field and structures a relationship of gendered power between male gaze as the seeing subject and female eye as an object to be seen. Looking into the representational aspects of women in this visual representation system structuralized by male gaze, women are represented in a way that reflects male desire through masquerade to comply with the patriarchal gaze, or differences that emphasizes the uniqueness and autonomy of women released from a patriarchal discourse. This study would be significant in that it provides theoretical basis for an analytic approach to the representation of women in fashion photography which we accept as a fixed one through the ideology of naturalization.