Fashioning Fat

November 3, 2014
Sociology professor Czerniawski goes undercover as a plus-size model in this exposé to find out the truth: is it empowering or exploitative to strut one’s size-14 (and up) self in front of the fashion industry’s cameras? The answer is as complicated and obscure as our relationship to food and our weight, since, as the author states, “Frankly, fat means different things to different people.” Most of the women interviewed for the book aren’t career models; they supplement their incomes by attending go-sees and open calls in the hopes that their measurements will add up to what the client desires. One model accidentally loses weight and, in doing so, loses her main account. She then drinks weight-gaining powders and shakes to return to the larger measurements listed on her agency’s calling card. The book’s personal asides and insider information are enlightening. Segments of semisalacious gossip, however, are hindered by the author’s lengthy tangents commenting on “affective labor” undertaken by the various models in a “dominant heteronormative framework,” while fashion itself serves as a “‘cosmetic panopticon,’ shaping norms and expectations of physical appearance across the spectrums of race, sexuality, and class.” Though this is indeed the academic jargon of gender studies, it still weighs down what is otherwise a fascinating read. 17 b&w halftones.