Duke University Press Work!: A Queer History of Modeling

From the haute couture runways of Paris and New York and editorial photo shoots for glossy fashion magazines to reality television, models have been an ubiquitous staple of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American consumer culture. In Work! Elspeth H. Brown traces the history of modeling from the advent of photographic modeling in the early twentieth century to the rise of the supermodel in the 1980s. Brown outlines how the modeling industry sanitized and commercialized models' sex appeal in order to elicit and channel desire into buying goods. She shows how this new form of sexuality—whether exhibited in the Ziegfeld Follies girls' performance of Anglo-Saxon femininity or in African American models' portrayal of black glamour in the 1960s—became a central element in consumer capitalism and a practice that has always been shaped by queer sensibilities. By outlining the paradox that queerness lies at the center of capitalist heteronormativity and telling the largely unknown story of queer models and photographers, Brown offers an out of the ordinary history of twentieth-century American culture and capitalism. Review "Work! is a groundbreaking contribution to the study of histories of sexuality, gender, race, and the market.... Brown's book is a fascinating must read because it provides a history for an industry that is ever present but also somehow discursively invisible."--Stefanie K. Dunning "Journal of African American History" (10/1/2021 12:00:00 AM)"I would highly recommend Work! to anyone interested in fashion studies, identity studies, queer studies, feminism, African American studies, black studies, history of photography, or art history and visual culture.... Work! is a superbly crafted, refreshingly clear and indispensable new history of modelling."--Joy Sperling "Fashion, Style & Popular Culture" (10/1/2020 12:00:00 AM)"The unique contribution of the book is the way the author weaves the narrative through the lens of affect theory while also engaging the history of capitalism.... The book is a breath of fresh air ... and I offer much applause to the author for undertaking this rigorous project."--Kelly L. Reddy-Best "Dress" (10/19/2020 12:00:00 AM)"With Work!, Elspeth H. Brown. . . has tied together the different strands of her intellectual expertise--queer and trans studies as well as affect theory--to take the reader on a mesmerizing journey through an until now uninvestigated queer history of fashion modeling."--Roberto Filippello "Fashion Theory" (9/10/2019 12:00:00 AM)"Across the book's five chapters--each vividly illustrated--Brown looks at the proliferation of ways that female bodies could be displayed: in couture houses, on stage, in print advertisements, as part of Hollywood's creation of glamour and in high-end fashion publications. At each juncture she explores the shifting relationship between desire and commerce, observing the 'de-eroticised, public sexuality embodied by those selling clothes, goods and ideals. Describing those models who performed a kind of 'material seduction'--one existing at a distance, alluring in its intangibility--Brown traces the subversive potential in the business of visual fantasy."--Rosalind Jana "TLS" (8/14/2020 12:00:00 AM)"Richly detailed and meticulously researched, Elspeth Brown's Work! offers an intersectional framework through which the reader is able to consider the history of capitalism, queerness, and studies of affect and emotion through the lens of fashion, advertising, and the model. ... Brown's work is unique in that it offers a narrative that sits uncomfortably between celebratory firsts for black models and gay photographers and the stereotyped messages inherently and, at times, unintentionally embedded within the fashion and advertising images."--Jennie Woodard "History" (5/1/2020 12:00:00 AM)"Work! is a deep dive into the history of a profession that is often regarded by many with surface-level thought. Modeling is oft