Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty - Volume 7, Issue 2, 2016

Viewed through the lens of the Kardashians as glamour labourers, this article examines the Kardashian phenomenon as it unfurls in a changing labour market, where glamour is becoming a common aspiration, no longer the domain of a privileged few. My analysis reveals how Kim Kardashian exemplifies the process by which the fashionably cool’s ever-morphing ideal seduces publics into chasing it, pulling publics into a highstakes game in which few realize exactly what they are losing. I argue that practices of no-holds-barred sharing and giving up privacy online are normalized, and presented as the ticket to achieving glamour, visibility and social acceptance.

This article explores complicity by way of beauty, post-feminist neo-liberalism and the Kardashian-Jenner family. I begin by contextualizing complicity and outlining my approach to beauty. I assert that dismissals of the family as vulgar stem from sexist and femmephobic interpretations of their hypersexual, hyperfeminine gender performances, and the genre they are most famous for: reality television. Alongside this, I point to the neo-liberal post-feminist discourses utilized by the family in their presentation of beauty work. The Kardashian-Jenners should be approached from a feminist perspective, with appropriate nuance and reflexivity. Acknowledgement of complicity (theirs and mine) provides the space to do this.

Pro-anorexia online spaces have received widespread criticism for their endorsement of anorexia nervosa via the posting of advice on self-starvation and images of thin models and celebrities known as ‘thinspiration’. They are considered marginal spaces for individuals who wish to maintain anorexia, and they are consequently subject to deletion and censorship by Internet moderators, and vilification by the Press. In spite of this, I suggest that their conception of thinness overlaps with that which is perpetuated by the mainstream media. Analysis of the representation of model and celebrity Kendall Jenner, who appears regularly in the mainstream media and pro-anorexia spaces alike, reveals this. Therefore, in this article, I interrogate the construction of the thin ideal in a celebrity gossip site’s discussion thread on Kendall. She is initially presented as the embodiment of ideal thinness through the castigation and othering of her Kardashian sisters who are cruelly derided. As the thread progresses however and Kendall grows up, she is gradually denied her thinspirational status. I argue that the veneration and denigration of Kendall Jenner exposes the transience of the thin ideal and its attendant anxieties. Using intersectionality as my critical paradigm, I explore the way in which a number of privileges are required to fulfil the thin ideal. As a result, I propose that it is young, middle-class, white femininity which is considered ‘thinspirational’.

Based on a small-scale project that explores racial distinctions in women’s attitudes towards weight loss and dieting, this article considers black women’s changing understandings of beauty and body image, and in particular young black women’s desire for a ‘slim-thick’ look. This is a body shape that brings together aspects of black and white beauty, seen to be embodied by Kim Kardashian, due to her full-figured bottom and thighs, and her very petite waist. The article argues that Kim Kardashian has been an important influence in shaping young women’s notions of attractiveness, by encouraging a common concept of body image and desirability across racial groups. Indeed, operating as an ‘exotic other’, who sits somewhere between black and white beauty, Kim Kardashian and the ‘slim-thick’ ideal perhaps offer an example of cultural assimilation, and yet they also work to exaggerate cultural stereotypes, encouraging a notion of beauty that is unrealistic, and far outside the reach of ordinary women.

Simmel on Fashion: A Commented Reading of the 1911 Essay, Giovanni Matteucci (2015), Bruno Mondadori-Pearson: Milan and Turin (Book Series ‘Cultures, Fashion and Society’s Notebooks’), 46 pp., ISBN: 9788867741205, epub, €2.99