by Ashley Mears started as the author's master's thesis. I haven't (knowingly) read many master's thesis, but if they were all as interesting as I'd seek them out. And just so you know, this book, like so much of the non-fiction I read, is research for a story I want to write.I love my job.
Blurb:Sociologist Ashley Mears takes us behind the brightly lit runways and glossy advertisements of the fashion industry in this insider’s study of the world of modeling. Mears, who worked as a model in New York and London, draws on observations as well as extensive interviews with male and female models, agents, clients, photographers, stylists, and others, to explore the economics and politics—and the arbitrariness— behind the business of glamour. Exploring a largely hidden arena of cultural production, she shows how the right "look" is discovered, developed, and packaged to become a prized commodity. She examines how models sell themselves, how agents promote them, and how clients decide to hire them. An original contribution to the sociology of work in the new cultural economy, Pricing Beauty offers rich, accessible analysis of the invisible ways in which gender, race, and class shape worth in the marketplace.
Opening:
You've got a great look.
That was what he told me as I sat in a Starbucks in downtown Manhattan. I had come in search of a quiet table at which to crack open a social theory book, one of a number of texts I was assigned as a new graduate student in sociology at New York University. Instead I found myself seated across from a model scout who was handing me his card and telling me that I could be making a fortune as a fashion model.
Teaser:
Edgy* is not commercially pretty but is code for a look that departs from conventional norms of attractiveness. It is the uncanny, sitting on the border between beautiful and ugly, familiar and strange, at once attracting and repulsing its viewer.
*Edgy is the quality agencies look for in an editorial (aka runway) model.
Would read this?
Share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you are reading. Here's the link: Bibliophile By The Sea
by Steve Delsohn which is feeding my disaster-survival fetish. Much of the book is in the words of the firefighters themselves, so this is a bit of a different perspective than most of what I've read.
by Cassie Mae and Becca Ann to me, but I liked the title. I thought it had potential to be different and fun, so I downloaded a sample, which has sat on my kindle for who-knows-how-long. I finally read the sample and immediately bought the book.
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by John Geddes, a retired British SAS officer who worked as a security contractor in the Middle East. I'm finding his frank style very engaging.