The American Ready Reckoner

Book excerpt: The author, a sociologist and former model draws on personal experiences and interviews with industry insiders to examine the economics, politics and arbitrariness of the glamor business. She takes us behind the brightly lit runways and glossy advertisements of the fashion industry in this insider's study of the world of modeling. She has worked as a model in New York and London, and 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, this book offers an analysis of the invisible ways in which gender, race, and class shape worth in the marketplace.