Hersh Shefrin
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195161212
- eISBN:
- 9780199832996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195161211.003.0007
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
The third theme of behavioral finance is inefficient markets. In recent years scholars have produced considerable evidence that heuristic‐driven bias and frame dependence cause markets to be ...
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The third theme of behavioral finance is inefficient markets. In recent years scholars have produced considerable evidence that heuristic‐driven bias and frame dependence cause markets to be inefficient. Scholars use the term “anomalies” to describe specific market inefficiencies. For this reason, Eugene Fama characterizes behavioral finance as “anomalies dredging.” This chapter discusses what behavioral finance implies about picking stocks and beating the market. Market efficiency is a direct challenge to active money managers, because it implies that trying to beat the market is a waste of time. Why? Because no security is mispriced in an efficient market, at least relative to information that is publicly available. Inside information may be another story. The chapter discusses whether the stock recommendations made by brokerage houses have beaten the market, and a series of effects discussed in the literature: the winner–loser effect, momentum, the size effect, the book‐to‐market effect, the effect of a change in analysts' recommendations.Less
The third theme of behavioral finance is inefficient markets. In recent years scholars have produced considerable evidence that heuristic‐driven bias and frame dependence cause markets to be inefficient. Scholars use the term “anomalies” to describe specific market inefficiencies. For this reason, Eugene Fama characterizes behavioral finance as “anomalies dredging.” This chapter discusses what behavioral finance implies about picking stocks and beating the market. Market efficiency is a direct challenge to active money managers, because it implies that trying to beat the market is a waste of time. Why? Because no security is mispriced in an efficient market, at least relative to information that is publicly available. Inside information may be another story. The chapter discusses whether the stock recommendations made by brokerage houses have beaten the market, and a series of effects discussed in the literature: the winner–loser effect, momentum, the size effect, the book‐to‐market effect, the effect of a change in analysts' recommendations.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
Over the last four decades, the fashion modeling industry has become a lightning rod for debates about Western beauty ideals, the sexual objectification of women, and consumerist desire. Yet, as ...
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Over the last four decades, the fashion modeling industry has become a lightning rod for debates about Western beauty ideals, the sexual objectification of women, and consumerist desire. Yet, as Wissinger contends, existing theories of commercialism and gender norms fail to fully explain the enduring appeal and significance of fashion models. Instead, in the growth of informational capitalism, the transformation from print to film to the internet has had an enormous impact on what kind of body counts as “fashionable.” From Twiggy’s iconic angularity to the supermodels’ “glamazonian” contours to the waif’s hollowed out silhouette, to Kim Kardashian's curves, technologies change the fashioning of bodies, and how they are valued. The book masterfully weaves together in-depth interviews, participant observation at model castings, photo shoots, runways shows, and a careful examination of “how-to” texts to offer a glimpse into the life of the model. This life involves a great deal of physical and virtual management of the body, or what Wissinger terms “glamour labor.” Traditional forms of “glamour labor’—specialized modeling work of self-styling, crafting a ‘look,’ and building an image—have been amplified by the rise of digital media as the power of pixilation afforded unprecedented access to tinkering with the body’s form and image. As lines blur between life, work, and body management in the participatory culture of Web 2.0, the street becomes a runway and being “in fashion” a route to success. In an era where self-fashioning, self-surveillance, and self-branding are presented as a means to “the good life,” this book urges us to take seriously the presentation of bodies and selves in the digital age.Less
Over the last four decades, the fashion modeling industry has become a lightning rod for debates about Western beauty ideals, the sexual objectification of women, and consumerist desire. Yet, as Wissinger contends, existing theories of commercialism and gender norms fail to fully explain the enduring appeal and significance of fashion models. Instead, in the growth of informational capitalism, the transformation from print to film to the internet has had an enormous impact on what kind of body counts as “fashionable.” From Twiggy’s iconic angularity to the supermodels’ “glamazonian” contours to the waif’s hollowed out silhouette, to Kim Kardashian's curves, technologies change the fashioning of bodies, and how they are valued. The book masterfully weaves together in-depth interviews, participant observation at model castings, photo shoots, runways shows, and a careful examination of “how-to” texts to offer a glimpse into the life of the model. This life involves a great deal of physical and virtual management of the body, or what Wissinger terms “glamour labor.” Traditional forms of “glamour labor’—specialized modeling work of self-styling, crafting a ‘look,’ and building an image—have been amplified by the rise of digital media as the power of pixilation afforded unprecedented access to tinkering with the body’s form and image. As lines blur between life, work, and body management in the participatory culture of Web 2.0, the street becomes a runway and being “in fashion” a route to success. In an era where self-fashioning, self-surveillance, and self-branding are presented as a means to “the good life,” this book urges us to take seriously the presentation of bodies and selves in the digital age.
Susan Falls
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479810666
- eISBN:
- 9781479877430
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479810666.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
Images of diamonds appear everywhere in American culture. And everyone who has a diamond has a story to tell about it. Our stories about diamonds not only reveal what we do with these tiny stones, ...
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Images of diamonds appear everywhere in American culture. And everyone who has a diamond has a story to tell about it. Our stories about diamonds not only reveal what we do with these tiny stones, but also suggest how we create value, meaning, and identity through our interactions with material culture in general. Things become meaningful through our interactions with them, but how do people go about making meaning? What can we learn from an ethnography about the production of identity, creation of kinship, and use of diamonds in understanding selves and social relationships? By what means do people positioned within a globalized political-economy and a compelling universe of advertising interact locally with these tiny polished rocks? This book draws on 12 months of fieldwork with diamond consumers in New York City as well as an analysis of the iconic De Beers campaign that promised romance, status, and glamour to anyone who bought a diamond to show that this thematic pool is just one resource among many that diamond owners draw upon to engage with their own stones. It highlights the important roles that memory, context, and circumstance also play in shaping how people interpret and then use objects in making personal worlds. It shows that besides operating as subjects in an ad-burdened universe, consumers are highly creative, idiosyncratic, and theatrical agents.Less
Images of diamonds appear everywhere in American culture. And everyone who has a diamond has a story to tell about it. Our stories about diamonds not only reveal what we do with these tiny stones, but also suggest how we create value, meaning, and identity through our interactions with material culture in general. Things become meaningful through our interactions with them, but how do people go about making meaning? What can we learn from an ethnography about the production of identity, creation of kinship, and use of diamonds in understanding selves and social relationships? By what means do people positioned within a globalized political-economy and a compelling universe of advertising interact locally with these tiny polished rocks? This book draws on 12 months of fieldwork with diamond consumers in New York City as well as an analysis of the iconic De Beers campaign that promised romance, status, and glamour to anyone who bought a diamond to show that this thematic pool is just one resource among many that diamond owners draw upon to engage with their own stones. It highlights the important roles that memory, context, and circumstance also play in shaping how people interpret and then use objects in making personal worlds. It shows that besides operating as subjects in an ad-burdened universe, consumers are highly creative, idiosyncratic, and theatrical agents.
Adrian Bingham
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199279586
- eISBN:
- 9780191707308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279586.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Social History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter explores the coverage of public figures. Celebrities — especially royalty and cinema stars — were hugely influential in giving definition to notions of glamour and sex appeal. Press ...
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This chapter explores the coverage of public figures. Celebrities — especially royalty and cinema stars — were hugely influential in giving definition to notions of glamour and sex appeal. Press reporting also helped to set the boundaries between what was deemed ‘public’ and ‘private’. Ideas about what sort of ‘private’ material was suitable for public consumption changed considerably. In the first half of the century, the sexual proclivities of prominent individuals were treated with considerable circumspection. By the 1950s, however, a market was developing for confessional features in which celebrities would discuss their sexual exploits. The extensive speculation about Princess Margaret's relationship with Peter Townsend provided a stark contrast with the press silence surrounding Edward VIII's relationship with Wallis Simpson. The Profumo scandal in 1963 demonstrated the spectacular stories that could be produced by more aggressive investigation. Despite calls for privacy legislation, governments were reluctant to challenge the ‘freedom of the press’.Less
This chapter explores the coverage of public figures. Celebrities — especially royalty and cinema stars — were hugely influential in giving definition to notions of glamour and sex appeal. Press reporting also helped to set the boundaries between what was deemed ‘public’ and ‘private’. Ideas about what sort of ‘private’ material was suitable for public consumption changed considerably. In the first half of the century, the sexual proclivities of prominent individuals were treated with considerable circumspection. By the 1950s, however, a market was developing for confessional features in which celebrities would discuss their sexual exploits. The extensive speculation about Princess Margaret's relationship with Peter Townsend provided a stark contrast with the press silence surrounding Edward VIII's relationship with Wallis Simpson. The Profumo scandal in 1963 demonstrated the spectacular stories that could be produced by more aggressive investigation. Despite calls for privacy legislation, governments were reluctant to challenge the ‘freedom of the press’.
Aakash Singh Rathore and Ajay Verma
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198068679
- eISBN:
- 9780199081233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198068679.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Indian Politics
This chapter discusses the Blessed Lord's benefactors, believers, enemies, and critics. The chapter begins narratives of some of the people who were benefactors of Buddha. Among these benefactors ...
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This chapter discusses the Blessed Lord's benefactors, believers, enemies, and critics. The chapter begins narratives of some of the people who were benefactors of Buddha. Among these benefactors were the King Bimbisara, Ambrapali and Vishakha; all of whom offered gifts and assistance. The next section discusses the enemies of Buddhism. These enemies charged Buddhism of conversion by glamour, of being parasites that dwelled on the earnings and sweat of other people, of breaking happy households by attracting young people to exile and Parivraja, and of immorality and murder. Among the staunchest enemies of Buddha were Devadatta and the Brahmins. The chapter also covers the critiques hurled against Buddhism and its doctrines. Some of the Buddhist doctrines criticised were: open admission to the Sangha, rule of vows; doctrine of ahimsa; and theory of soul and rebirth. Buddhism was also condemned of being annihilationist and of creating gloom through the vow of poverty.Less
This chapter discusses the Blessed Lord's benefactors, believers, enemies, and critics. The chapter begins narratives of some of the people who were benefactors of Buddha. Among these benefactors were the King Bimbisara, Ambrapali and Vishakha; all of whom offered gifts and assistance. The next section discusses the enemies of Buddhism. These enemies charged Buddhism of conversion by glamour, of being parasites that dwelled on the earnings and sweat of other people, of breaking happy households by attracting young people to exile and Parivraja, and of immorality and murder. Among the staunchest enemies of Buddha were Devadatta and the Brahmins. The chapter also covers the critiques hurled against Buddhism and its doctrines. Some of the Buddhist doctrines criticised were: open admission to the Sangha, rule of vows; doctrine of ahimsa; and theory of soul and rebirth. Buddhism was also condemned of being annihilationist and of creating gloom through the vow of poverty.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
While the general public engages in varying levels of it, the models and modeling professionals I spoke to for this study claimed they felt as though they were never off duty and were always at work ...
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While the general public engages in varying levels of it, the models and modeling professionals I spoke to for this study claimed they felt as though they were never off duty and were always at work to produce the right “look” in person, in photographs, and online. Model agents made it clear that it matters where models live, where they eat and shop, and on which airline they travel. As this chapter explores, some respondents reported being told explicitly by their agents they had to put on the show all the time, even if they were just running around the corner to do an errand, mindful of the impression they might make as they are out and about, conscious of their online image created by the photos snapped of them in fashionable neighborhoods or at social events and posted to blogs or websites dedicated to documenting the modeling world. It seems like a lot of work, but models who really want to “make it” report trying to make it look fun to be exposed in this way, to be “on” all the time, to be out there in the spotlight, as often as humanly possible.Less
While the general public engages in varying levels of it, the models and modeling professionals I spoke to for this study claimed they felt as though they were never off duty and were always at work to produce the right “look” in person, in photographs, and online. Model agents made it clear that it matters where models live, where they eat and shop, and on which airline they travel. As this chapter explores, some respondents reported being told explicitly by their agents they had to put on the show all the time, even if they were just running around the corner to do an errand, mindful of the impression they might make as they are out and about, conscious of their online image created by the photos snapped of them in fashionable neighborhoods or at social events and posted to blogs or websites dedicated to documenting the modeling world. It seems like a lot of work, but models who really want to “make it” report trying to make it look fun to be exposed in this way, to be “on” all the time, to be out there in the spotlight, as often as humanly possible.
Lloyd Whitesell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190843816
- eISBN:
- 9780190843854
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190843816.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Glamour is an elusive aspect of cinematic style. This book critically examines previous scholarship on glamour; defines the concept as a compound of artifice, allure, and magic; and examines the ...
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Glamour is an elusive aspect of cinematic style. This book critically examines previous scholarship on glamour; defines the concept as a compound of artifice, allure, and magic; and examines the phenomenon at work in the genre of the film musical. The focus is on the role of music in representing glamour, and the stylistic and semiotic conventions by which glamour is embodied in sound. The book develops an analytical framework that applies across media, the better to appreciate music’s collaborative role within multimedia spectacle. First, glamour is situated as one of a handful of “style modes” orienting stylistic treatment in musical numbers. Second, glamour is shown to blend four distinct aesthetic parameters: sensuousness, restraint, elevation, and sophistication. Instead of being interpreted in relation to film narrative, the musical number is treated as a semiautonomous locus of meaning and expression, with its own formal demands and the power to eclipse narrative logic. Dozens of musical numbers are analyzed, drawn from more than eighty films, exploring glamour from the perspectives of arranging and orchestrational technique, the fantasies awoken in the spectator, and the invocation of magical belief. Anticonsumerist critiques of glamour are evaluated alongside counterarguments upholding glamour’s transformative and sustaining potential. Concluding discussion shows how the musical genre has affinities with the hybrid aesthetic of “magical realism.”Less
Glamour is an elusive aspect of cinematic style. This book critically examines previous scholarship on glamour; defines the concept as a compound of artifice, allure, and magic; and examines the phenomenon at work in the genre of the film musical. The focus is on the role of music in representing glamour, and the stylistic and semiotic conventions by which glamour is embodied in sound. The book develops an analytical framework that applies across media, the better to appreciate music’s collaborative role within multimedia spectacle. First, glamour is situated as one of a handful of “style modes” orienting stylistic treatment in musical numbers. Second, glamour is shown to blend four distinct aesthetic parameters: sensuousness, restraint, elevation, and sophistication. Instead of being interpreted in relation to film narrative, the musical number is treated as a semiautonomous locus of meaning and expression, with its own formal demands and the power to eclipse narrative logic. Dozens of musical numbers are analyzed, drawn from more than eighty films, exploring glamour from the perspectives of arranging and orchestrational technique, the fantasies awoken in the spectator, and the invocation of magical belief. Anticonsumerist critiques of glamour are evaluated alongside counterarguments upholding glamour’s transformative and sustaining potential. Concluding discussion shows how the musical genre has affinities with the hybrid aesthetic of “magical realism.”
Jill Fields
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520223691
- eISBN:
- 9780520941137
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520223691.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter determines how the industrial manufacture of intimate apparel has shaped the definition of undergarments in American culture. The cultural activities of the International Ladies Garment ...
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This chapter determines how the industrial manufacture of intimate apparel has shaped the definition of undergarments in American culture. The cultural activities of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and the fashion sensibilities of garment workers were found between fashion production and consumption. It looks at the dressing practices of undergarment workers and their steady participation in union activities. This reveals that the division between the fashion industry and the garment industry results from ideologies and cultural institutions that build social distinctions between the people who sew and the people who shop. The chapter concludes that glamour, particularly as expressed in fashion, has been a powerful mediator of tensions and upholding inequity in modern America.Less
This chapter determines how the industrial manufacture of intimate apparel has shaped the definition of undergarments in American culture. The cultural activities of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and the fashion sensibilities of garment workers were found between fashion production and consumption. It looks at the dressing practices of undergarment workers and their steady participation in union activities. This reveals that the division between the fashion industry and the garment industry results from ideologies and cultural institutions that build social distinctions between the people who sew and the people who shop. The chapter concludes that glamour, particularly as expressed in fashion, has been a powerful mediator of tensions and upholding inequity in modern America.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
In this chapter, I explore the significance of increasingly stringent and exigent dieting, exercise, and surgery advice from the 1970s onward, highlighting how self-altering practices were cast as a ...
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In this chapter, I explore the significance of increasingly stringent and exigent dieting, exercise, and surgery advice from the 1970s onward, highlighting how self-altering practices were cast as a means to become an acceptable member of society. It explores how the model became the ideal for the whole population. Simultaneously, however, the body’s vitality and mutability also came to be favored, as a biopolitics of beauty emerged, organizing and regulating publics at the level of population, as a standing reserve, always already in need of enhancement and optimization, ready for a close-up, in need of that makeover. In tandem with these developments, modeling work took on characteristics that prompted some of my respondents to refer to it as “the life,” a state of working that felt to many like having to be “on” all the time. In the transition from day job to total lifestyle, playing the role of being a model—sashaying about in crinolines, carrying a hatbox containing waist cinchers and war paints (the badge of the model’s trade), while ducking into movie theaters to make oneself scarce between calls—gave way to the casual street chic, “I only dress up on the runway” attitude of today, where models live the part, hiding the effort required to make looking glamourous seem easy and like something everyone should do.Less
In this chapter, I explore the significance of increasingly stringent and exigent dieting, exercise, and surgery advice from the 1970s onward, highlighting how self-altering practices were cast as a means to become an acceptable member of society. It explores how the model became the ideal for the whole population. Simultaneously, however, the body’s vitality and mutability also came to be favored, as a biopolitics of beauty emerged, organizing and regulating publics at the level of population, as a standing reserve, always already in need of enhancement and optimization, ready for a close-up, in need of that makeover. In tandem with these developments, modeling work took on characteristics that prompted some of my respondents to refer to it as “the life,” a state of working that felt to many like having to be “on” all the time. In the transition from day job to total lifestyle, playing the role of being a model—sashaying about in crinolines, carrying a hatbox containing waist cinchers and war paints (the badge of the model’s trade), while ducking into movie theaters to make oneself scarce between calls—gave way to the casual street chic, “I only dress up on the runway” attitude of today, where models live the part, hiding the effort required to make looking glamourous seem easy and like something everyone should do.
Kathleen Ossip
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813062204
- eISBN:
- 9780813051895
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813062204.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
With a mixture of talent, naiveté, and marketing smarts, Anne Sexton created lasting images of glamour, genius, insouciance, and self-destruction that defined the late-twentieth century woman, poet, ...
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With a mixture of talent, naiveté, and marketing smarts, Anne Sexton created lasting images of glamour, genius, insouciance, and self-destruction that defined the late-twentieth century woman, poet, and woman-poet. These images contributed to her success, but also made it difficult to assess her poetry, as shown by contemporary reviews of her work. “Are We Fake? Images of Anne Sexton, Twentieth-Century Woman/Poet” looks at how the images evolved and what pleasure and enlightenment we can gain from them now.Less
With a mixture of talent, naiveté, and marketing smarts, Anne Sexton created lasting images of glamour, genius, insouciance, and self-destruction that defined the late-twentieth century woman, poet, and woman-poet. These images contributed to her success, but also made it difficult to assess her poetry, as shown by contemporary reviews of her work. “Are We Fake? Images of Anne Sexton, Twentieth-Century Woman/Poet” looks at how the images evolved and what pleasure and enlightenment we can gain from them now.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
I describe in this chapter how the increased effort to harness hard-to-manage forms of “affective” energy accelerated the demand for models to sell brands and how eventually, in the form of the ...
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I describe in this chapter how the increased effort to harness hard-to-manage forms of “affective” energy accelerated the demand for models to sell brands and how eventually, in the form of the supermodels, models became brands themselves. The inauguration of the supermodels brought the transition from a girl who models to the 24/7 supermodel icon and the supermodels who became the quintessential glamour laborers who were never off duty. Facilitated by newly far flung webs of cable television and high-speed communications, the supermodels became household names. This transition laid the groundwork for the rise of mass fashion and the spread of glamour labor to the general populace. Prior to the regime of the blink, the fashion show, for instance, was nothing like the branded dazzle with which we are currently familiar.Less
I describe in this chapter how the increased effort to harness hard-to-manage forms of “affective” energy accelerated the demand for models to sell brands and how eventually, in the form of the supermodels, models became brands themselves. The inauguration of the supermodels brought the transition from a girl who models to the 24/7 supermodel icon and the supermodels who became the quintessential glamour laborers who were never off duty. Facilitated by newly far flung webs of cable television and high-speed communications, the supermodels became household names. This transition laid the groundwork for the rise of mass fashion and the spread of glamour labor to the general populace. Prior to the regime of the blink, the fashion show, for instance, was nothing like the branded dazzle with which we are currently familiar.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
In this chapter, I treat how changes in the goals and methods of the fashion shoot. The value of what the model did changed from the 1900s discovery that a person’s image could be owned by them and ...
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In this chapter, I treat how changes in the goals and methods of the fashion shoot. The value of what the model did changed from the 1900s discovery that a person’s image could be owned by them and worth money to the carefully staged and scripted studio shots prevalent from the 1920s through the 1950s, to the far more intense and invasive practice of getting one’s “soul sucked out” by the camera lens, as one model described it, to being given the puzzling direction to try to look like a rat (as the former supermodel Cindy Crawford reported). This chapter tracks shifts in photographic modeling, from using models as mere props to an intense experience in which the model is expected to reveal herself utterly to the camera. Models’ stories about photographic sittings and shoots reveal how affective lability or mania became a valuable factor in modeling work for the camera in the age of the blink.Less
In this chapter, I treat how changes in the goals and methods of the fashion shoot. The value of what the model did changed from the 1900s discovery that a person’s image could be owned by them and worth money to the carefully staged and scripted studio shots prevalent from the 1920s through the 1950s, to the far more intense and invasive practice of getting one’s “soul sucked out” by the camera lens, as one model described it, to being given the puzzling direction to try to look like a rat (as the former supermodel Cindy Crawford reported). This chapter tracks shifts in photographic modeling, from using models as mere props to an intense experience in which the model is expected to reveal herself utterly to the camera. Models’ stories about photographic sittings and shoots reveal how affective lability or mania became a valuable factor in modeling work for the camera in the age of the blink.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
In this chapter, I document how advertising’s need to send a specific, meaningful message to an interested consumer shaped the work of model management in its early days. At that time, 1900s fashion ...
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In this chapter, I document how advertising’s need to send a specific, meaningful message to an interested consumer shaped the work of model management in its early days. At that time, 1900s fashion designers, such as the incomparable Lucile, tightly controlled their mannequins, molding them into the “look” of their particular house. Mid-century models were given specific instruction in which expressions to wear and how to feel for a particular shoot. With the developing importance of capitalizing on the value of experiences and the body’s changeability, however, modeling work evolved into the professional free-for-all that it is today, where it is anybody’s guess what look clients will want from one moment to the next. Similar changes surfaced in methods for obtaining and portraying the ideal body recommended to models in published manuals of modeling “advice.” This chapter also explores how the popular language of model management draws back the curtain on how we envisage the “ideal” worker as a culture, since changes in instructions given to models over the years interestingly have dovetailed with significant changes in productive technologies during the same timeframe. This connection becomes particularly evident when tracing the advice given to models in modeling manuals from the 1920s to the 1960s, described here.Less
In this chapter, I document how advertising’s need to send a specific, meaningful message to an interested consumer shaped the work of model management in its early days. At that time, 1900s fashion designers, such as the incomparable Lucile, tightly controlled their mannequins, molding them into the “look” of their particular house. Mid-century models were given specific instruction in which expressions to wear and how to feel for a particular shoot. With the developing importance of capitalizing on the value of experiences and the body’s changeability, however, modeling work evolved into the professional free-for-all that it is today, where it is anybody’s guess what look clients will want from one moment to the next. Similar changes surfaced in methods for obtaining and portraying the ideal body recommended to models in published manuals of modeling “advice.” This chapter also explores how the popular language of model management draws back the curtain on how we envisage the “ideal” worker as a culture, since changes in instructions given to models over the years interestingly have dovetailed with significant changes in productive technologies during the same timeframe. This connection becomes particularly evident when tracing the advice given to models in modeling manuals from the 1920s to the 1960s, described here.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
Here I outline how the turn toward affective branding has shaped a new image regime facilitating the model industry’s rapid expansion into a global network, broadening the field for scouting of ...
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Here I outline how the turn toward affective branding has shaped a new image regime facilitating the model industry’s rapid expansion into a global network, broadening the field for scouting of prospective models, intensifying competition and turnover as a result. Increasing interest in tapping into affect’s vitality has intensified glamour labor as model managers have sought tighter control of their charges. This chapter tracks how the tightening of control over models was met with a widening field of scouting for new recruits to the industry. As the public’s exposure to and interest in fashion has grown apace, fashion weeks have proliferated beyond the traditional fashion hubs, and scouting for new models has reached into ever-more remote regions. Consequently, modeling contests have grown in size and number, modeling agencies have opened offices in dozens of countries, and fashion has become “news” as television shows and websites treating fashion became commonplace. Banking on the new value of mutability, model scouts ranged farther afield in search of that precious combination of features that might make millions. The age of the blink facilitated this expansion, converting more of the population into a standing reserve, made ready for their makeovers by a steady diet of reality television and twenty-four- hour access to the newest fashions, updated by the minute.Less
Here I outline how the turn toward affective branding has shaped a new image regime facilitating the model industry’s rapid expansion into a global network, broadening the field for scouting of prospective models, intensifying competition and turnover as a result. Increasing interest in tapping into affect’s vitality has intensified glamour labor as model managers have sought tighter control of their charges. This chapter tracks how the tightening of control over models was met with a widening field of scouting for new recruits to the industry. As the public’s exposure to and interest in fashion has grown apace, fashion weeks have proliferated beyond the traditional fashion hubs, and scouting for new models has reached into ever-more remote regions. Consequently, modeling contests have grown in size and number, modeling agencies have opened offices in dozens of countries, and fashion has become “news” as television shows and websites treating fashion became commonplace. Banking on the new value of mutability, model scouts ranged farther afield in search of that precious combination of features that might make millions. The age of the blink facilitated this expansion, converting more of the population into a standing reserve, made ready for their makeovers by a steady diet of reality television and twenty-four- hour access to the newest fashions, updated by the minute.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter documents the racial parameters of the fashion aesthetic. While models of color are more prevalent in high-fashion images today, historically the modeling industry has been closed off ...
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This chapter documents the racial parameters of the fashion aesthetic. While models of color are more prevalent in high-fashion images today, historically the modeling industry has been closed off from taking the kinds of risks that involve troubling the idea of “fashion” as dictated the given signs and symbols that have evolved within the corporate world. For black models the repertoire for creating a marketable look has traditionally been limited by stereotypes and cultural assumptions, which shape black models’ glamour labor in specific ways. Their self-branding has demanded more intense forms of bodywork and self-commodifying, at times using their race as part of their brand, while at times essentially erasing their racial characteristics by straightening their hair or pushing their bodies to fit a Euro-American standard. While my respondents experienced their race as something they created or dissimulated according to client’s whims, at the same time they were keenly aware of how their work was shaped by prevailing expectations of what “race” should look like, indicating the power of pre-existing racial tensions into which they must fit the aesthetics of the look they build when doing glamour labor.Less
This chapter documents the racial parameters of the fashion aesthetic. While models of color are more prevalent in high-fashion images today, historically the modeling industry has been closed off from taking the kinds of risks that involve troubling the idea of “fashion” as dictated the given signs and symbols that have evolved within the corporate world. For black models the repertoire for creating a marketable look has traditionally been limited by stereotypes and cultural assumptions, which shape black models’ glamour labor in specific ways. Their self-branding has demanded more intense forms of bodywork and self-commodifying, at times using their race as part of their brand, while at times essentially erasing their racial characteristics by straightening their hair or pushing their bodies to fit a Euro-American standard. While my respondents experienced their race as something they created or dissimulated according to client’s whims, at the same time they were keenly aware of how their work was shaped by prevailing expectations of what “race” should look like, indicating the power of pre-existing racial tensions into which they must fit the aesthetics of the look they build when doing glamour labor.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0010
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
I explore in this chapter how, in recent decades, modeling work has come to require embodying the ideal of a malleable body, especially since the 1980s and 1990s, when digital technologies ...
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I explore in this chapter how, in recent decades, modeling work has come to require embodying the ideal of a malleable body, especially since the 1980s and 1990s, when digital technologies facilitated the desire to manipulate appearances, since digitization enabled an infinite malleability of appearance down to the tiniest pixel. Modeling work increasingly became the work to always be ready for, or in the process of, transformation, and in so doing, models glamorized this practice for the general public.Less
I explore in this chapter how, in recent decades, modeling work has come to require embodying the ideal of a malleable body, especially since the 1980s and 1990s, when digital technologies facilitated the desire to manipulate appearances, since digitization enabled an infinite malleability of appearance down to the tiniest pixel. Modeling work increasingly became the work to always be ready for, or in the process of, transformation, and in so doing, models glamorized this practice for the general public.
Elizabeth A. Wissinger
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794180
- eISBN:
- 9780814794197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794180.003.0011
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
In this chapter, I situate the book’s findings about modeling, embodiment, and technology in the debates about affect stirred up by the age of the blink. It considers the theoretical ramifications of ...
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In this chapter, I situate the book’s findings about modeling, embodiment, and technology in the debates about affect stirred up by the age of the blink. It considers the theoretical ramifications of imaging regimes, glamour labor, digital culture, affectivity, and technological changes in early 21st century. Placing questions raised by looking at modeling work and its cultural impact addresses debates about the differences between affect and emotion. The chapter also treats debates in neuroscience about affect and affect studies, discussing the theories of Massumi, Thrift, Leys, Ledoux, and James-Lange.Less
In this chapter, I situate the book’s findings about modeling, embodiment, and technology in the debates about affect stirred up by the age of the blink. It considers the theoretical ramifications of imaging regimes, glamour labor, digital culture, affectivity, and technological changes in early 21st century. Placing questions raised by looking at modeling work and its cultural impact addresses debates about the differences between affect and emotion. The chapter also treats debates in neuroscience about affect and affect studies, discussing the theories of Massumi, Thrift, Leys, Ledoux, and James-Lange.
Susan Falls
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479810666
- eISBN:
- 9781479877430
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479810666.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter details the sprawling transnational commodity chain that helps transform lowly rocks into valuable gems. It traces the historical importance of diamonds, noting how Greek, Indian, and ...
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This chapter details the sprawling transnational commodity chain that helps transform lowly rocks into valuable gems. It traces the historical importance of diamonds, noting how Greek, Indian, and Chinese legends all allude to diamonds' magical qualities, describing their use as poisoning or healing agents, or as cutting and bead-drilling tools. Through a kind of contagious magic, diamonds were also thought to bring virility to men on the battlefield and in the bedroom. However, the association of diamonds with romance, status, and glamour is, actually, relatively recent as it was only in the mid-fifteenth-century in France where this admiration started. The chapter also describes the history of diamond mining, outlining the early major “diamond rushes” that happened in Africa, India, and Brazil and the rise of the De Beers company, a global leader in diamond exploration, mining, and trading.Less
This chapter details the sprawling transnational commodity chain that helps transform lowly rocks into valuable gems. It traces the historical importance of diamonds, noting how Greek, Indian, and Chinese legends all allude to diamonds' magical qualities, describing their use as poisoning or healing agents, or as cutting and bead-drilling tools. Through a kind of contagious magic, diamonds were also thought to bring virility to men on the battlefield and in the bedroom. However, the association of diamonds with romance, status, and glamour is, actually, relatively recent as it was only in the mid-fifteenth-century in France where this admiration started. The chapter also describes the history of diamond mining, outlining the early major “diamond rushes” that happened in Africa, India, and Brazil and the rise of the De Beers company, a global leader in diamond exploration, mining, and trading.
Faye Hammill
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846312328
- eISBN:
- 9781846316111
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846316111
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
In an era obsessed with celebrity and glamour, ‘sophistication’ has come to be perceived as the most desirable of human qualities, but it was not always so. This book explores how a word that once ...
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In an era obsessed with celebrity and glamour, ‘sophistication’ has come to be perceived as the most desirable of human qualities, but it was not always so. This book explores how a word that once meant falsification and perversion came to be regarded as signifying discrimination and refinement. The author provides a literary, linguistic and cultural route from the Romantics, via the emergence of the Dandy and then of Modernism, to that most sophisticated of figures, Noël Coward, and on to the meaning of sophistication in the twenty–first century. Ranging widely across historical documents, magazines, adverts, films and novels, this book will be compulsory reading for sophisticates and scholars.Less
In an era obsessed with celebrity and glamour, ‘sophistication’ has come to be perceived as the most desirable of human qualities, but it was not always so. This book explores how a word that once meant falsification and perversion came to be regarded as signifying discrimination and refinement. The author provides a literary, linguistic and cultural route from the Romantics, via the emergence of the Dandy and then of Modernism, to that most sophisticated of figures, Noël Coward, and on to the meaning of sophistication in the twenty–first century. Ranging widely across historical documents, magazines, adverts, films and novels, this book will be compulsory reading for sophisticates and scholars.
Melanie Williams
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474405638
- eISBN:
- 9781474434843
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474405638.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores the emergence and long career of British sex symbol Diana Dors, with a particular emphasis on the height of her film career in the 1950s (and her temporary relocation to ...
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This chapter explores the emergence and long career of British sex symbol Diana Dors, with a particular emphasis on the height of her film career in the 1950s (and her temporary relocation to Hollywood) but also examines her ongoing self-fashioning as a celebrity in the decades beyond her moment as a pin-up.Less
This chapter explores the emergence and long career of British sex symbol Diana Dors, with a particular emphasis on the height of her film career in the 1950s (and her temporary relocation to Hollywood) but also examines her ongoing self-fashioning as a celebrity in the decades beyond her moment as a pin-up.
