'Perfect Fit': Industrial Strategies, Textual Negotiations and Celebrity
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‘Perfect Fit’: Industrial Strategies, Textual Negotiations and Celebrity Culture in Fashion Television Helen Warner Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of East Anglia School of Film and Television Studies Submitted July 2010 ©This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived therefrom, may be published without the author's prior, written consent. Helen Warner P a g e | 2 ABSTRACT According to the head of the American Costume Designers‟ Guild, Deborah Nadoolman Landis, fashion is emphatically „not costume‟. However, if this is the case, how do we approach costume in a television show like Sex and the City (1998-2004), which we know (via press articles and various other extra-textual materials) to be comprised of designer clothes? Once onscreen, are the clothes in Sex and the City to be interpreted as „costume‟, rather than „fashion‟? To be sure, it is important to tease out precise definitions of key terms, but to position fashion as the antithesis of costume is reductive. Landis‟ claim is based on the assumption that the purpose of costume is to tell a story. She thereby neglects to acknowledge that the audience may read certain costumes as fashion - which exists in a framework of discourses that can be located beyond the text. This is particularly relevant with regard to contemporary US television which, according to press reports, has witnessed an emergence of „fashion programming‟ - fictional programming with a narrative focus on fashion. Surely then, it is important to look beyond the television text if we are to gain an understanding of the cultural functions and social uses of costume. While there a small, but important body of work on film costume has developed from a feminist perspective – with a particular focus on gender and the body – the study of television costume continues to be marginalised within the academy. This thesis thus seeks to address this imbalance by focusing specifically on the uses of fashion in television at a time of intriguing intersection between fashion, television and celebrity culture. In so doing, I seek to build a foundation upon which we might begin to understand the cultural function and social uses of costume in a television context. Moreover, this study moves beyond the analysis of costume at the level of text by considering the economic and cultural uses of onscreen fashion in three case studies of „fashion programming‟ (Sex and the City, The O.C. (2003-2007) and Ugly Betty (2006-), at the level of industry, text and intertext. This multi-dimensional approach is crucial, I argue, if we are to fully understand the function/s of onscreen fashion. Helen Warner P a g e | 3 Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………2 Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………....3 List of Illustrations…………………………………………………………………………………..5 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………….6 Introduction: Prime Time Fashion: Conceptualising Onscreen Fashion and Costume………7 Fashion, Feminism and Popular Culture………………………………………………………..10 Fashion, Stardom and Celebrity………………………………………………………………...18 Fashion, Costume and Cinema………………………………………………………………….23 Methodological Approaches to Fashion Television……………………………………………27 Section One: The Place of Fashion Television: Industry Discourse and the Search for Cultural Legitimacy………………………………………………………………………………39 Chapter One: Fashion Programming and Cinema: Cultural Value and Canons…………………...41 Industry Discourse and the Emergence of Fashion Programming……………………………..42 The „Democratisation‟ of Fashion: Fashion, Fashion Programming and Cultural Value……...45 „The Ultimate Symbiosis‟?: Fashion and Classical Film………………………………………49 „From the Catwalk to the Living Room‟: Sex and the City and High Onscreen Fashion……...54 Chapter Two: Fashion and Costuming: Processes of Production and Consumption……………...58 Ownership, Legitimacy and the Role of the Costume Designer……………………………….59 The Art of Costume Design: Contemporary Costuming and Consumer Culture………………64 Chapter Three: Fashion and Television Celebrity: Producing Value and „Meaning Transfer‟…....73 The Glamorisation of the Television Celebrity: Claims of Newness and Change……………..73 The Celebrity Image and Cultural Value……………………………………………………….79 Perpetuating Myths of Greatness……………………………………………………………….83 Section Two: Textual Approaches to Fashion, Costume and Narrative………………………88 Chapter Four: Sex and Shopping: Fashion, Spectacle and Narrative………………………………92 „Self-conscious Spectacularity‟: Fashion as a Textual Language………………………………93 „Conspicuous Consumption‟: Shopping in SATC……………………………………………...98 Femininity, Fashion and Shopping…………………………………………………………….100 Femininity, Responsible and Irresponsible Consumption……………………………………..102 Masculinity and Consumer Practices………………………………………………………….105 Chapter Five: Antifashion Programming: Fashion, Character and Identity in The O.C.................109 Fashion, Costume and Character………………………………………………………………110 Youth, Subcultures and Emo Fashion…………………………………………………………116 Fashion, Femininity and Resistance…………………………………………………………...121 Chapter Six: Expressive/Excessive: Fashion, Comedy and Excess in Ugly Betty……………......125 „TV‟s Most Fashionable Comedy‟: Genre and Comedy………………………………………126 Comedy, Consumption and Excess……………………………………………………………133 Section Three: Fashioning Celebrity…………………………………………………………...142 Chapter Seven: „Real Life Cinderella‟: SJP, Class and „Tastemaking‟………………………......146 „A Real Life Cinderella‟: SJP, Stardom and Class…………………………………………....147 „Access to the Canons of Taste‟: SJP and „Style Watch‟………………………………..........153 „Fashion for Everyone‟: Maintaining Class Boundaries………………………………………155 „Why Don‟t You… be Respectable? Lifestyle, Class and Cultural Intermediaries…………...157 Chapter Eight: „Man of Style‟: Adam Brody, Masculinity and Fashion……………………….....165 Consuming Masculinity: The Dandy, The New Man and The Metrosexual………………….166 „Growing Up Brody‟: Fashion, Television and Teen Stardom………………………………..169 Reading Masculinity: Masculinity and Men‟s Magazines………………………………….....174 Chapter Nine: Locating the Real: America Ferrera, Fashion, Ethnicity and Authenticity……......181 „Real Celebrities Have Curves‟: Star Bodies, Ethnicity and Authenticity………………….....182 „God Bless America‟: The American Dream and Narratives of Ethnic Stardom……………..185 „Ugly Betty is HOT!‟: Makeover Narratives and The „Self as Project‟………………………190 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….198 Helen Warner P a g e | 4 Industrial Strategies……………………………………………………………………………199 Textual Strategies……………………………………………………………………………...202 Celebrity Culture……………………………………………………………………………....204 Bibliography...……………………………………………………………………………………207 Helen Warner P a g e | 5 List of Illustrations Figure 1: SJP, People.............................................................................151 Figure 2: Diana Vreeland, Harper‟s Bazaar.......................................... 160 Figure 3: SJP, Harper‟s Bazaar..............................................................160 Figure 4: Diana Vreeland.......................................................................161 Figure 5: SJP, Harper‟s Bazaar..............................................................161 Figure 6: Adam Brody, GQ ...................................................................177 Helen Warner P a g e | 6 Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank the School of Film and Television Studies at UEA for awarding me a very welcome bursary. I would also like to thank my supervisors Dr Su Holmes and Prof Mark Jancovich for their encouragement and guidance. In addition, I wish to thank Lewis Swift for his proofreading, TV-watching, tea-making and eternal patience. Finally, I am indebted to Lynne Warner, for donating her time and proofreading skills, and Jenny Warner, for making sense of my erratic referencing system and giving my bibliography “order and method”. I am especially grateful to you both for all of your support (emotional and financial) and for your interest and enthusiasm in this project: much love. Helen Warner P a g e | 7 Introduction Prime Time Fashion: Conceptualising Onscreen Fashion and Costume „Fashion and costumes are not synonymous; they are antithetical.‟1 Most introductory anthologies on fashion theory begin by asking the question, „what is fashion?‟ For Linda Welters and Abby Lillethun, fashion is considered to be „changing styles of dress and appearance that are adopted by a group of people at any given time and place.‟2 Similarly, Joanne Entwistle describes fashion as „a system of dress characterised by an internal logic of regular and systematic change‟.3 Yuniya Kawamura defines fashion by what it is not, „fashion is „not a material product, it is a symbolic product‟.4 Finally, and as illustrated in the quote above, for the head of the American Costume Designers‟ Guild, Deborah Nadoolman Landis, fashion is emphatically not costume. However, if this is the case, how do we approach costume in a television show like Sex and the City (1998-2004), which we know (via press articles and various other extra- textual materials) to be comprised of designer clothes? Indeed, offscreen these clothes are symbolic products, representative of a certain style adopted by a group of people, and characterised by an internal logic of regular and systematic change. Once onscreen, are the clothes in Sex and the City to be interpreted