Fashion Advertisements & the Use of Bodies

(Demarchelier)

For my Lecture/Recitation: Introduction to Fashion Studies, we were asked to choose a fashion advertisement, either past or present, and discuss the use of bodies in the image. I selected an advertisement for Allure (a women’s magazine based New York City, USA, focused on beauty, published monthly by Conde Nast), photographed by Patrick Demarchelier showing model Maryna Linchuk walking in a hotel lobby. She is only wearing a thong, by Victoria’s Secret, heels by Alexander Wang and a handbag from Fendi. There are two other girls, dressed, in the background and a lobby-boy carrying what it appears to be the bags of the model.

The main focus in the advertisement is on the model who is a cisgender, Caucasian woman. Her body is toned, slender and has unrealistic almost perfect proportions. She has blonde, shiny, wavy hair, as well as a well-structured face. The girls in the background are also skinny and they also seem to have the same characteristics as the main model. On this image, there is only one body type shown, being slender, light-skinned, tall, toned, with unrealistic proportions. But the reality is that people outside this image don’t have these proportions, or it is fairly uncommon. In the book Fashion and Cultural Studies by Susan B. Kaiser, she describes that: “[…] we cannot think of gender merely as a biological essence but rather as a social construction that is embodied ( 2012, p.123)”. Meaning that gender, in this case, can be seen as a way of constantly styling the body, and this is influenced by the culture you live in, but it is also an ongoing experience of fashion in a social and personal level. In the case of the advertisement, the image’s creator is trying to build a desire for the ‘perfect body’ for western women. By implying that this unrealistic body is the standard for beauty and that if you look like this you will have the confidence to show your body like the model, only needing a pair of heels and a handbag. In the western world, this type of body is seen as beautiful and desired. Women since a young age want to look like this, by removing body hair, working out, following extreme diets, dying their hair to blonde, and the like, to fit in this unrealistic social construction. But the truth is that everybody is born with different proportions, from different ethnicities, and with different standards to what they think is beautiful.

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– Patrick Demarchelier. May-13. Maryna Linchuk walking through hotel lobby wearing only a thong by Victoria’s Secret. Leather shoes by Alexander Wang. Patent-leather handbag by Fendi. Beauty case by Valextra. Leather bag by Louis Vuitton., Publication: Allure. https://library-artstor-org.libproxy.newschool.edu/asset/AWSS35953_35953_35702055.

– Kaiser, Susan B. 2012. “Gendering Fashion, Fashioning Gender: Beyond Binaries”. In Fashion And Cultural Studies, p. 123. New York, London: Berg, 2012.

 

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