Pricing Beauty

The Making of a Fashion Model
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-520-27076-3
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 151 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 447 g

Sociologist Ashley Mears takes us behind the brightly lit runways and glossy advertisements of the fashion industry in this insider’s study of the world of modeling. Mears, who worked as a model in New York and London, draws on observations as well as extensive interviews with male and female models, agents, clients, photographers, stylists, and others, to explore the economics and politics—and the arbitrariness— behind the business of glamour. Exploring a largely hidden arena of cultural production, she shows how the right “look” is discovered, developed, and packaged to become a prized commodity. She examines how models sell themselves, how agents promote them, and how clients decide to hire them. An original contribution to the sociology of work in the new cultural economy, Pricing Beauty offers rich, accessible analysis of the invisible ways in which gender, race, and class shape worth in the marketplace.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mears, Ashley

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Sachkultur, Materielle Kultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Wirtschaftssoziologie, Arbeitssoziologie, Organisationssoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

1. Entry
2. Economics of the Catwalk
3. Becoming a Look
4. The Tastemakers
5. Size Zero High-End Ethnic
6. Runway to Gender
7. Exit

Appendix: The Precarious Labor of Ethnography
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ashley Mears is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University