Fashion Models’ Glamour Labor and the Mediation of Affect

• In Event: 338 - Section on Communication and Information Technologies Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Paper Session: Table 04.

Abstract

This paper discusses how fashion modeling works as a form of glamour labor that stirs up affective connections, which are profitable for capital. Working from my research on fashion modeling, I present this research's ramifications for a theoretical treatment of media, affect, and bodies via a concept I call “glamour labor.” The paper begins with a few words regarding what “glamour labor” is; I then use the concept of models’ glamour labor to seek to redress some confusion about the concept of “affect” as it relates to bodies and media in the self-branding process. I then flesh out a conceptualization of how the affective body lends itself to forces of optimization and enhancement so common in the digital age. I conclude by focusing on how the pursuit of the fashionable body plays into larger forces that organize publics as either in or out of fashion, enticing them into behaviors that capitalize on the body’s malleability, a process that might either help or hinder a more inclusive version of what’s considered “fashionable.”

Author

• Elizabeth A. Wissinger, City University of New York-Borough of Manhattan Community College