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Disorder or delight? Towards a new account of the fashion model body

Dwyer, Angela E. (2004) Disorder or delight? Towards a new account of the fashion model body . Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture 8(4):pp. 405-423.

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Abstract

The body of the fashion model is not always an object of admiration. Extensive criticism has been directed at the sordid and sometimes grotesquely unhealthy and inappropriate bodily appearance of the fashion model body. The disorderliness of the model body is particularly conspicuous in research literature that interrogates the fashion model in terms of illness and possible treatment. Such accounts can work out of assumptions about the model body as intrinsically disorderly, even dangerous, imbued with the capacity to ‘infect’ a healthy population. This paper analyses these research accounts, taking as its particular point of interest the ways in which the model body is constituted as a ‘naturally’ disorderly entity in need of medical intervention. The paper pre-empts fresh analyses of the ‘influence’ of the fashion model body as disciplined, precise analyses that are possible once the discursive opposition between desire and discipline is undone.

Item Type:Journal Article
Status:Published
Keywords:fashion model, body, disorder, young girl, discipline, desire, pleasure, literature, feminist, research
Subjects:420000 Language and Culture > 420300 Cultural Studies > 420303 Culture, Gender, Sexuality
420000 Language and Culture > 420300 Cultural Studies
370000 Studies in Human Society > 379900 Other Studies in Human Society > 379901 Gender Specific Studies
370000 Studies in Human Society > 370100 Sociology
ID Code:11241
Deposited By:Dwyer, Angela E
Deposited On:18 December 2007
Alternative Locations:http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/136270404778051573
Copyright Owner:Copyright 2004 Berg Publishing