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Models, Measurement, and the Problem of Mediation in the New York Fashion Industry
Author(s) -
SadreOrafai Stephanie
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
visual anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.346
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1548-7458
pISSN - 1058-7187
DOI - 10.1111/var.12104
Subject(s) - mediation , ethnography , sociology , resource (disambiguation) , aesthetics , media industry , epistemology , computer science , public relations , political science , social science , art , philosophy , anthropology , computer network
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.