Fashioning Fat: Inside Plus-Size Modeling by Amanda M. Czerniawski Read Free Book Online

is more variation among plus-size models in terms of both body type and size when compared to the strict body standard of straight-size models.
    An examination of the social construction of beauty cannot begin and end with the models themselves. Such an investigation would fail to capture the complete aesthetic labor process involved in constructing an image. The models’ agents and clients dictate each step of the production of beauty. In chapter 4 , I document an intensive aesthetic labor process, whereby these models continually developed their bodies according tothe demands of their fashion employers. In modeling, an inch here or there really does matter. These models face intense pressures from their agents to alter their bodies. In order to work in fashion, they utilize their bodies as capital and embark on a variety of body projects at the risk of losing work opportunities and agency representation. Chapter 5 discusses the agents themselves, the fashion gatekeepers who are responsible for a model’s career.
    While models are subject to the corporeal demands from their agents, clothing designers dictate fashion trends and aesthetics. In chapter 6 , I explore the products of modeling work—the images conveyed in retail marketing campaigns—and a new crop of designers who, themselves, identify as plus-size. This burgeoning field of plus-size designers that self-identify as plus-size women, offer the unique case of establishing a clothing market
of
and
for
their own. As plus-size women, they hold the key to challenging contemporary bodily aesthetics that privilege the thin body.
    Chapter 7 explores the impact these various plus-size fashion professionals—the models, agents, and designers—have on cultural representations of fat bodies. The fashion machine hides the backstage labor process from consumers, who never see the physical labors a model endures to fit an image dictated by fashion professionals. Fashion also ignores health concerns. Instead, consumers receive a commercial image of a “plus-size” beauty—joyful, desirable, and free from bodily imperfections.
    By examining the complete aesthetic labor process—both the front stage and backstage behaviors—and the relationships between these cultural producers, I show that a plus-size model’s performance does not result in the reclamation of her embodiment. Yes, the plus-size model challenges contemporary bodily aesthetics that privilege the thin body, demonstrates that fat can be sexy, and feels empowered while doing it. At the individual level, she succeeds in overcoming years of self-loathing and shame over her body. Furthermore, the entrepreneurial designers who identify as plus size do envision a new aesthetic for fat women. However, the day-to-day interactions between a plus-size model and heragent reveal the model’s lack of control in the construction of the image of beauty. At the institutional level, the fashion industry perpetuates her objectification. A plus-size model conforms to an image created by fashion’s tastemakers. Her body fits within narrowly defined parameters of
their
choosing. Ultimately, she molds her body to fit an image instead of molding an image of beauty to fit her body. Within this occupational structure, she is voiceless and disembodied.
    In this book, I give her a voice and try to recognize her body on its own terms.

2
How to Become a Plus-Size Model
    A week after the call from the assistant, I boarded a downtown subway to the modeling agency. As the subway car zipped past station after station, I clutched my bag in nervous anticipation of the meeting. My bag held the additional snapshots the agency had requested that my roommate took of me in a haphazard photo shoot in our living room a couple of days before. A flurry of thoughts filled the darkness of the underground—
Will this meeting end like the last? Was this a foolhardy idea doomed to fail?
    When I emerged on street level from the depths of the subway