Princeton University
This course explores written and visual biographies and autobiographies of American, African, and Asian women in the fashion industry as a launching point for thinking about race, gender, and class in media. How do ethnicity and femininity intersect? How are authenticity and difference commodified? How do women construct identities through narrative or craft selves through body modification? How do women negotiate their relationships to their bodies, families, and nations? In what way is fashion being democratized by consumers? Course will include guest lectures by fashion models, authors, filmmakers and/or editors; discussions of contemporary television programs, global fashion, and cultural studies; and student self-narratives about their relationships with cultural standards of beauty, whether vexed or not.
We live in an ever more virtual world, a world designed to persuade us to believe in certain values and act accordingly. At the same time, the relentless stream of messages means that consumers are forced to scan, to absorb meaning without evaluating what is being communicated. An essential task of the humanities and literature courses such as this one is to aid students in analyzing and interpreting this virtual world and its rhetoric, as well as formulating arguments about it. Students will study the "natural" and how what appears "natural" to those in certain cultures is constructed by those cultures and their industries. We will study how we all participate in the construction of ideals of the female body and how models' bodies are cultural forms made for certain purposes and serving certain interests and therefore must always be interpreted not just accepted. Students will learn that the pleasures of fashion, while real, play a role in global processes of incorporation and therefore pose ethical questions about how we treat the stranger, the other, and what responsibility we have to those others
General
Readings
Required Books
[\c] Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves by Crystal Renn with Margorie Ingall (2009, US, 256 pages) – About her battle with eating disorders and career as a plus-size model.
[\c] Alek: From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel by Alek Wek (2007, Sudan, 224 pages) – Her life story as a model.
[\c] Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad by Waris Dirie and Cathleen Miller (1998, Somalia, 228 pages) – An African nomad becomes a model.
[\o] Siberian Dream by Irina Pantaeva (1998, Siberia, 309 pages) – About an Eskimo girl whose fashion career became a route to freedom.
[\c] Veronica by Mary Gaitskill (2005, US, 240 pages) – A novel about a friendship between a young fashion model and a former model with HIV.
[\c] I Am Iman by Iman, Peter H. Beard, and David Bowie (2001, Somalia, 160 pages) – Essays on race and fashion by models, photographers, and critics.
Possible Films and Videos
[\c] Picture Me directed by Sara Ziff and Ole Schell (2009, US, documentary) – Follows model Sara Ziff’s rise and the fashion world.
[\c] Killing Us Softly 3 by Jean Kilbourne (2000, US, documentary) – Analysis of women in advertising.
[\c] Gia by Michael Cristofer (2004, US, film) – Life of supermodel Gia who died of AIDS at 26, starring Angelina Jolie.
[\c] Cover Girl Culture: Awakening the Media Generation by Nicole Clark (2009, US, documentary) – The fashion industry’s effect on girls’ body image.
[\c] Desert Flower by Sherry Hormann (2009, Germany) – Film adaptation of Waris Dirie’s book, starring Liya Kebede.
[\c] Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn (1957, US, film) – A satire on magazine editors and intellectual fashion models.
[\c] Prêt-à-Porter (1994, US, film) – Satire shot during Paris Fashion Week.
Fantacoca by Agnes Ndibi (2001, Cameroon, documentary) – About skin whitening in Cameroon.
[\c] Real Women Have Curves by Patricia Cardoso (2002, US) – A Latino family and their clothing factory.
[\c] Model by Frederick Wiseman (1980, US, documentary) – The modeling industry and photography methods.
[\c] Unzipped with Isaac Mizrahi (1995, US, documentary) – A season with a designer creating a new collection.
[\c] The September Issue: Anna Wintour and the Making of Vogue (2009, US, documentary) – Includes interviews with Grace Coddington.
[\c] Paris Is Burning by Jennie Livingstone (1990, US, documentary) – African American and Latino male and transgender Ball culture.
[\c] The Color of Beauty by Elizabeth St. Philip (2010, Canada, documentary) – A black model navigating a world dominated by white beauty standards.
[\c] Good Hair by Chris Rock (2010, US, documentary) – African American women and hair culture.
[\c] Catwalk by Robert Leacock (Australia, 1996, documentary) – Follows Christy Turlington through fashion shows.
[\c] A Nomad in New York: The Day That Changed My Life (BBC documentary) – Follows Waris Dirie in New York.
[\c] Phat Girlz by Nnegest Likké (2006, US, film) – Plus-size designer struggles to accept herself while falling in love.
Article-length Memoirs and Biographies
Elyse Sewell – A live journal of a transnational model; also Beauty and the Biz: The International Adventures of America's Third to Next Top Model (2006, US).
[\o] Jennifer Egan, “James Is a Girl,” New York Times Magazine (1996, Feb 4).
Jezebel Articles:
Fit Modeling: "Sort Of Like The $100-An-Hour Model Equivalent Of Sweatshop Labor" (Feb 7, 2008)
Whenever I Feel Like Starving Myself, I Just Look At "1 Cup Of Oatmeal With Brown Sugar.doc" (Apr 7, 2008)
Welcome To America, Models! Tatiana Can't Wait For The Extra Competition (Jun 12, 2008)
Modeling And The Tragedy Of Karen Mulder (Jul 1, 2009)
Jenna Sauers, I Am The Anonymous Model (Jul 21, 2009)
[\o] Veronica Webb, “How Does A Supermodel Do Feminism?” in Rebecca Walker, To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism (1995).
Lost Angel: The Death and Life of a Woman of Fashion, NY Magazine – About Tina Chow, a model who had AIDS.
[\o] “I didn't think of myself as good looking at all”, NY Magazine – About China Mechado, one of the first models of color.
Trend Watch / Fashion Media
[\c] America’s Next Top Model (Blackface/Hapa episode, Eyelid surgery episode)
[\o] Vogue (Black, Curvy issues)
[\o] Tribal Trend So Hot
[\o] Wardrobe Remix
[\o] Academic Chic
[\o] The Sartorialist
[\o] Italian Vogue (Black issue)
[\o] Jezebel, China’s Next Top Model (Cycle 1, Episode 1 Part 1, online)
[\o] Channel Four's This Model Life (Ep. 1–3) by Jane Treays (2006) – Follows a 6’5” model.
[\o] Leni Riefenstahl, Nuba
[\o] CFDA Panel: The Beauty of Health: Resizing the Sample Size
[\o] Bijan
[\o] Model Bella
Possible Secondary Source Readings
[\c] Geoffrey Jones, Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
[\a] Frances Negrón-Muntaner, “Jennifer's Butt,” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 22, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 181–194.
[\o] Saskia Sassen, “Global Cities and Survival Circuits,” in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, Arlie Hochschild and Barbara Ehrenreich, eds. (2003).
[\a] M. Kim, “Consuming Orientalism: Images of Asian/American Women in Multicultural Advertising,” Qualitative Sociology 28, no. 1 (March 2005).
[\a] Kristyne Loughran, “The Idea of Africa in European High Fashion: Global Dialogues,” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture 13, no. 2 (June 2009).
[\c] Cheryl Chase, “‘Cultural Practice’ or ‘Reconstructive Surgery’? U.S. Genital Cutting, the Intersex Movement, and Medical Double Standards,” in Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics, Stanlie Myrise James and Claire C. Robertson, eds., 126–151. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
[\c] Lisa See, “Of Seeing and Otherness: Leni Riefenstahl’s Photographs of the Nuba African Photographs,” in The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy, Sara Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox, Susanne Zantop, eds. University of Michigan Press, 1998.
[\a] Patricia Hill Collins, “Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection,” in The Meaning of Difference, Karen E. Rosenblum and Toni-Michelle C. Travis, eds., 213–223. NY: McGraw Hill, 1996.
[\c] Ashley Mears, Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model (2011, Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 1–26.
[\a] Ashley Mears, “Discipline of the Catwalk: Gender, Power and Uncertainty in Fashion Modeling,” Ethnography 9 (Dec 2008): 429–456.
[\a] Ashley Mears, “Size Zero High-End Ethnic: Cultural Production and the Reproduction of Culture in Fashion Modeling,” Poetics 38 (2010): 21–46.
[\a] Ashley Mears with Frèderic C. Godart, “How Do Cultural Producers Make Creative Decisions: Lessons from the Catwalk,” Social Forces 88, no. 2 (2009): 671–692.
[\a] Ashley Mears with William Finlay, “Not Just a Paper Doll: How Models Manage Bodily Capital and Why They Perform Emotional Labor,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 34, no. 3 (2005): 317–345.
[\o] Sarah Pedersen, “Female Form in the Media: Body Image and Obesity,” in Fat Matters: From Sociology to Science, ed. Gina Tsichlia and Alexandra Johnstone (2010), 5–12.
[\a] Steven R. Thomsen, J. Kelly McCoy, Robert Gustafson, H. Marlene Williams, “Motivations for Reading Beauty and Fashion Magazines and Anorexic Risk in College-Age Women,” Media Psychology 4, no. 2 (2002): 113–135.
[\a] Marika Tiggemann, Janet Polivy, and Duane Hargreaves, “Processing Thin Ideals: The Processing of Thin Ideals in Fashion Magazines,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 28, no. 1 (2009): 73–93.
[\a] Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1975): 6–18.
[\c] Susan Douglas, The Rise of Enlightened Sexism: How Pop Culture Took Us from Girl Power to Girls Gone Wild (2010, New York: Macmillan), 1–26.
[\a] Amanda M. Czerniawski, “Disciplining Corpulence: The Case of Plus-Size Fashion Models,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (2011): 1–27.
[\a] Elizabeth Wissinger, “Managing the Semiotics of Skin Tone: Race and Aesthetic Labor in the Fashion Modeling Industry,” Economic and Industrial Democracy 33, no. 1 (2012): 125–143.
[\c] Rita Barnard, “Contesting Beauty,” in Sense of Culture: South African Cultural Studies, Sarah Nuttall & Cheryl-Ann Michael, eds. (2000, New York: Oxford), 344–362.
[\c] Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins, Reading National Geographic (University of Chicago Press, 1993) – Examines race and gender through visual analysis.
[\c] Joanne B. Eicher, Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion (10 vols., 2010) – Covers global dress and adornment; Vol. 1: Africa, Vol. 10: Global Perspectives.
[\c] Joanne B. Eicher, Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time (1999) – Ethnographic case studies of dress and cultural identity.
[\c] Brenda R. Weber, Makeover TV: Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity – Examines makeover television in neoliberal and postfeminist culture.
[\c] Linda Welters and Abby Lillethun, The Fashion Reader (Berg, 2007) – Key readings on history, culture, and business of fashion.
Alternate Memoirs
[\c] Kiki's Memoirs by Kiki (1929, France) – 1920s French model in the Latin Quarter (first published in French).
[\c] Jean Shrimpton: An Autobiography by Jean Shrimpton and Unity Hall (1992, Britain) – 1960s–70s British model.
[\c] B Model: An Embellished Memoir by Miranda Darling (2006, US) – 16-year-old model in the 1980s.
[\a] Not Without Love: Memoirs by Constance Webb (2003, US) – Model befriends black intellectuals in the 1960s.
[\c] No Lifeguard: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel by Janice Dickinson (2003, US) – 1970s supermodel with addictions.
[\c] Sex, Love, and Fashion: A Memoir of a Male Model by Bruce Hulse and Wendy Holden (2008, Canada).
[\c] Fashion Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones (2008, UK, 336 pages) – Follows an anonymous British fashion designer.
[\c] A.L.T.: A Memoir by Andre Leon Talley – Top Model consultant.
[\c] They Still Shoot Models My Age by Susan Moncur (1993, US, 114 pages) – Former model after birth of son.
[\c] Model: A Memoir by Cheryl Diamond (2008, US, 368 pages) – 14-year-old girl in Manhattan fashion industry.
[\c] Model: Life Behind the Makeup by Jillian Shanebrook (2003, US, 176 pages) – Princeton student becomes model in Asia.
[\c] Sight: Adventures in the Big City by Veronica Webb (1998, 282 pages) – Essays on fashion by an African American model.
[\c] The Abandoned Baobab: A Senegalese Woman's Autobiography by Ken Bugul (1984, 1991).
[\c] Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2008).
[\c] With Faith, Hope, and Love: The Story of a Survivor of Camp Tjideng, Dutch East Indies by Hiske Forsyth Strong (2009).
Satires
[\c] Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? (1966, France, film) – Satire of fashion industry.
[\c] Zoolander (2001, US, film) – Spoof featuring male models.
Controversy
[\o] Course announcement generated discussion on Jezebel, Huffington Post, Modelinia, The Ink, CocoPerez, Essence, Fashion, The Frisky, EqualWrites, Fashion Students Online, Daily Princetonian, The Prox, etc., with notable contributions by fashion critic and former model Jenna Sauers (Jezebel).