The posts schedules are written in sand, not stone:) My mind is bursting with fashion articles at the moment, so I might as well plunge ahead. The next article takes us in a different direction. It seemed a semi-logical next step since we talked about Cosmo editor Hurley Brown. On a side note, I find it interesting that the Latin American version of the magazine adopts Hurley Brown's hated-by-second- wave-feminist-expression "Cosmo girl"as its title.
di Casanova, E. (2003). Women's magazines in Ecuador: Re-reading "la Chica Cosmo." Studies in Latin American popular culture, 22, 89-102.
In Ecuador, fashion is for the upper class, the privileged, di Casanova tells us. La Chica Cosmo is the Western magazine Cosmopolitan's attempt to create global consumers. di Casanova has two major criticisms of this magazine and the Western fashion industry. First, she asserts that there is a deliberate attempt to exploit the middle class female, appealing to her to distinguish herself from her lower class peers and develop style and consumption habits like her upper class peers. Of course, middle class status is more precarious than upper class status.
di Casanova's criticism is most directed at the glorification of European culture and looks. Selected Latin American models have decidedly "white" features and are displayed with European trappings. She points out that this underscores racist messages that dark skin and Indian features are not desirable. The whole idea of Western fashion imposing its values on Latin American women uncovers the legacy of colonialism. di Casanova fingers Western fashion as an agent of Northern Imperialism.
di Casanova's message is useful in discussing that fashion does not exist solely for women's enjoyment. Marketing and production have other motives. Some of the things di Casanova argues are the same criticisms of Western fashion magazines for Western women: certain qualities are deemed beautiful and desirable connoting that everything else is not, having style makes you more powerful and elevated (even if you can't afford it, at least you look good), etc.
That was my attempt at portraying di Casanova's article in a neutral manner. Thoughts?
It is the nature and job of marketing to make us want what we are not or don't have, isn't it? So that we will buy what will make us what we want? Am I vilifying marketers? I'm sure there is an argument to be made that they are only the giving the public what they want.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think it is so easy for something to be twisted from an enjoyable thing into something driven by profit. I do object to the setting of ideals impossible to reach.
I got a copy of the Athleta catalog in the mail. Have you looked at it? I was surprised. It is full of amazingly fit, muscular women. And not body-building muscular. Lean, thin, muscular women. But they had breasts. And I realized that, in fashion magazines, those models don't. I never noticed. Victoria's Secret models, of course, are an exception. But that's not the ideal model body for fashion, runways, etc., is it?
Maybe a tangent?
You - Villify? No. I've read second wave feminist literature that paints fashion as a tool of oppression in the hands of the men that run the marketing firms and large clothing corporations. Not just money making endeavors, but attempts to keep women in a certain place in society, to ensure women are not taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteI have not run across any articles that answer your "give the people what they want" question. So, I will show a bit of what's in my hand and say that if we didn't buy it, no one would make it and sell it. If we think practices are oppressive in some way, than we should not patronize that business, invest in their stocks, support their subsidiaries, etc. Just as I think motives are not always of one source, I also think that where there is oppression, there are often multiple sources contributing. My opinion: take it with a glass of water and two grains of salt.