Fashion Has an Image Problem Glamour is predicated on transgression.
Suddenly, fashion photography seems stale. But not just stale — also cruel. The recent allegations of sexual abuse by Bruce Weber and Mario Testino suggest
that the tension that gives most fashion imagery its charge might come at a very
human cost. This should have been obvious all along — just look at the images,
suffused by a vernacular of degradation, pain, and suffering. As “casting couch”
practices persisted in Hollywood, the idea that a model was a mirror for a
photographer’s dark urges seemed too obvious to interrogate. Or perhaps too
discomforting, given that our desires were reflected in those images.
Objectification was the price of admission to a supposedly glamorous world. All
along the fashion food chain, everybody benefited, so long as the models kept
their silence.
New York is inundated with pictures of style, but do you have any idea how to make sense of them or how they came to be? I did not, until many years ago, when
I worked as a creative director making fashion ads. The library at the company
where I worked contained thousands of magazines. For months on end, I combed
through old issues looking for references to use in upcoming advertising
campaigns. During this process, I became familiar with the worst visual clichés
of the genre: people jumping for no reason, models staring into the middle
distance with slightly parted lips, every kind of “native” juxtaposed with tall,
skinny blondes. (See also: naked people in trees, gratuitous lesbianism, white
couples on permanent safari, bodies splayed on a floor as if they were boneless
dolls.) The formula for a fashion shoot seemed to hinge on pinpointing taboos,
then pushing right up to their limit and often beyond. If the fantasies depicted
didn’t trigger a little flicker of absurdity or distaste, the images didn’t seem
to be doing their job.
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