Models, Measurement, and the Problem of Mediation in the New York Fashion Industry

Abstract

From age and body measurements to the number and kinds of models featured in advertising campaigns and runway presentations, numbers are a seemingly less subjective way of monitoring aesthetic shifts and representational imbalances in the fashion industry. Yet an ethnographic investigation of how modeling agents actually use numbers in their everyday practices reveals something different. In this essay, I situate agents’ numerical performances within their local theories of mediation to explore how agents use numbers and measurements as a discursive resource for constructing models’ bodies as particular kinds of media.

Design and Anthropology

“…Building on classic studies of fashion and its relations to social class (Simmel 1957), social meaning (Barthes 1990), and social change (Richardson & Kroeber 1940), much of this research has centered on analyzing indigenous garments or styles of dress and how they relate to consumption practices and identity performances (Hansen 2004). More recently, however, anthropologists have begun exploring the conditions of fashion production in more depth (Moon 2009, Sadre-Orafai 2016, including a heightened sensitivity to designers (Luvaas 2012) and designing (Nicewonger 2015) in their own right.…”