Skip to content
1981
10th Anniversary Special Issue: ‘Queer Style and Porn Chic’
  • ISSN: 2050-0726
  • E-ISSN: 2050-0734

Abstract

Fashion, eroticism and pornography, especially in recent years, have created different synergies that not only embrace the design of fashion products and collections, but have defined and define precise visual, photographic and cinematographic languages as well as communication strategies that have not only borrowed the language and aesthetics of pornography, but also communication models, tools and channels. Today, we have thus witnessed an increasing hybridization of languages and channels that have generated forms of communication (performative, editorial, cinematographic or digital). It is not easy to identify the limits between fashion and pornography and between private and public spheres. Through literature review and several case studies, the article aims to investigate the evolution of the relationship between fashion, pornography and mass communication from an aesthetic, performative and, last but not least, technological point of view.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/fspc_00106_1
2023-02-27
2026-04-13

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Arnold, Rebecca (2001), Fashion, Desire and Anxiety: Image and Morality in the 20th Century, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Attwood, Feona (2009), Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture, London and New York: I.B. Tauris.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Barilli, Renato ([1979] 2006), Informale Oggetto Comportamento: La ricerca artistica negli anni ’70, Milan: Feltrinelli.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Baudrillard, Jean ([1979] 1990), Seduction, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Benjamin, Walter ([1982] 1986), I passaggi di Parigi (trans. E. Ganni), Torino: Einaudi.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Biasin, Enrico, Maina, Giovanna and Zecca, Federico (eds) (2011), Il porno espanso: Dal cinema ai nuovi media, Milan: Mimesis.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bishop, Mardia J. (2007), ‘The making of a pre-pubescent porn star: Contemporary fashion for elementary school girls’, in A. C. Hall and M. J. Bishop (eds), Pop-Porn: Pornography in American Culture, Westport, CT: Preager, pp. 4456.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bonazzi, Matteo and Cappa, Francesco (eds) (2010), Pop Porn: Critica dell’immaginario porno, Milan: Et al./Edizioni.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Bourdieu, Pierre (ed.) (1990), Photography: A Middle-Brow Art, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Brown, Stephen (2010), ‘The three Rs of relationship marketing: Retroactive, retrospective, retrogressive’, in T. Hennig-Thurau and U. Hansen (eds), Relationship Marketing: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention, Berlin, Heidelberg and New York: Springer, pp. 393413.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Calefato, Patrizia (2007), Mass moda: Linguaggio e immaginario del corpo vestito, Rome: Meltemi Editore.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Carmagnola, Fulvio (1989), La visibilità: Per un’estetica dei fenomeni complessi, Milan: Edizioni Angelo Guerini.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Checefsky, Bruce (2008), ‘Photography and desire: Fashion, glamour and pornography’, in R. P. Michael (ed.), The Concise Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: From the First Photo on Paper to the Digital Revolution, Amsterdam: Elsevier and Focal Press, pp. 8493.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Church Gibson, Pamela and Kirkham, Neil (2012), ‘Fashionably laid: The styling of hard-core’, in C. Hines and D. Kerr (eds), Hard to Swallow: Hard-Core Pornography on Screen, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 14762.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Codeluppi, Vanni (2003), ‘Il corpo flusso: La moda al di là del narcisismo’, in G. Ceriani and R. Grandi (eds), Moda: Regole e rappresentazioni: Il cambiamento, il sistema, la comunicazione, Milan: Franco Angeli, pp. 8290.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Coopersmith, Jonathan (1998), ‘Pornography, technology and progress’, Icon, 4, pp. 94125.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Di Marino, Bruno (2013), Hard Media: La pornografia nelle arti visive, nel cinema e nel web, Monza: Johnan & Levi Editore.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Fiorani, Eleonora (2006), Moda, corpo e immaginario: Il divenire del mondo fra tradizione e innovazione, Milan: Edizioni POLI.design.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Geczy, Adam and Karaminas, Vicki (2016), Fashion’s Double: Representations of Fashion in Painting, Photography and Film, London and New York: Bloomsbury.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Gilardi, Ando (2002), Storia della fotografia pornografica, Milan: Bruno Mondadori.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Glöckner, Carsten (2009), Sex 2.0: Pornography and Prostitution Influenced by the Internet: Feminist Views on Pornography and Prostitution, Munich: Grin Publishing.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Hall, Ann C. and Bishop, Mardia J. (2007), Pop-Porn: Pornography in American Culture, Westport, CT: Preager.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Han, Byung-Chul (2015), The Transparency Society, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Kirkham, Neil (2012), ‘The new “porno-chic”?: Fashion, consumption and film pornography’, Film, Fashion and Consumption, 1:2, pp. 20320.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Lipovetsky, Gilles (2002), ‘More than fashion’, in U. Lehmann and J. Morgan (eds), Chic Clicks: Creativity and Commerce in Contemporary Fashion Photography, Boston, MA: The Institute of Contemporary Art, pp. T810.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Lütgens, Annelie (2002), ‘Neither clearly fashion, nor clearly art’, in U. Lehmann and J. Morgan (eds), Chic Clicks: Creativity and Commerce in Contemporary Fashion Photography, Boston, MA: The Institute of Contemporary Art, pp. T2227.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. McLuhan, Marshall (1964), Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York: McGraw-Hill.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. McNair, Brian (1996), Mediated Sex: Pornography and Postmodern Culture, London: Edward Arnold.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. McNair, Brian (2002), Striptease Culture: Sex, Media and Democratisation of Desire, Abingdon: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. McNair, Brian (2012), ‘Pornography in the multiplex’, in C. Hines and D. Kerr (eds), Hard to Swallow: Hard-Core Pornography on Screen, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 1126.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. McNair, Brian (2013), Porno? Chic!: How Pornography Changed the World and Made It a Better Place, London and New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Menicocci, Marco (2014), Pornografia di massa: Dalla rivoluzione sessuale alla Porn Culture, Lungavilla: Edizioni Altravista.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Molho, Renata (1996), ‘Con la pelle per vestito tra tagli e trasparenze’, Il Sole 24 Ore, 6 October, p. 34.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Morin, Edgar ([1957] 1961), The Stars, New York: Grove Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Morin, Edgar ([1962] 2017), Lo spirito del tempo, Milan: Meltemi.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Paasonen, Susanna, Nikunen, Kaarina and Saarenmaa, Laura (eds) (2007), Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture, Oxford: Berg.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Pompa, Chiara (2017), ‘Diaries without padlocks: Photographic writing of the obscene in social networks, art and fashion’, in I. Tolic (ed.), The Culture Fashion and Society Notebook 2017, Milan: Bruno Mondadori, pp. 93141.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Pravadelli, Veronica (2014), Le donne del cinema: Dive, registe, spettatrici, Bari: Laterza.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Preciado, Paul B. ([2010] 2020), Pornotopia: Playboy: Architettura e sessualità (trans. E. Rafanelli), Rome: Fandango Libri.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Regazzoni, Simone (2010), Pornosofia: Filosofia del pop porno, Milan: Ponte alle Grazie.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Reichert, Tom (2003), The Erotic History of Advertising, New York: Prometheus Book.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Reichert, Tom (2012), ‘What is sex in advertising? Perspectives from consumer behavior and social science research’, in T. Reichert and J. Lambiase (eds), Sex in Advertising, London: Routledge Communication Series, pp. 1137.
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Reichert, Tom, Carpenter Childers, Courtney and Reid, N. Leonard (2012), ‘How sex in advertising varies by product category: An analysis of three decades of visual sexual imagery in magazine advertising’, Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 33:1, pp. 119.
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Sarracino, Carmine and Scott, Kevin M. (2009), The Porning of America: The Rise of Porn Culture, What It Means, Where We Go from Here, Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Schneier, Matthew (2016), ‘Grindr, the gay dating app, hooks up with fashion’, New York Times, 26 January, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/fashion/grindr-the-gay-dating-app-hooks-up-with-fashion.html. Accessed 11 August 2020.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Sivulka, Juliann (2012), Soap, Sex and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising, Boston, MA: Wadsworth and Cengage Learning.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Sørensen, Anette D. (2005), ‘Pornophication and gender stereotyping in mass culture in Denmark’, paper presented at Nordic Forum, Tallinn, Estonia, 8 June.
  48. Stanley, Terry L. (2004), ‘Surreal life: Porn crosses over to media mainstream’, Ad Age, 26 January, https://adage.com/article/news/surreal-life-porn-crosses-media-mainstream/97495. Accessed 11 August 2020.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Williams, Linda ([1989] 1999), Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible’, Berkeley, CA, Los Angeles, CA and London: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Zahm, Olivier (2002), ‘On the marked change in fashion photography’, in U. Lehmann and J. Morgan (eds), Chic Clicks: Creativity and Commerce in Contemporary Fashion Photography, Boston, MA: The Institute of Contemporary Art, pp. T2528.
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Linfante, Vittorio and Pompa, Chiara (2023), ‘How pornography saved fashion from boredom and improved its financial situation and vice versa: Communication technology overlaps between fashion and pornography’, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, Special Issue: ‘Queer Style and Porn Chic’, 10:1&2, pp. 23549, https://doi.org/10.1386/fspc_00106_1
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/fspc_00106_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test