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The Microsociology of Aesthetic Evaluation: Selecting Runway Fashion Models

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“Alas, beauty brooks no compromise; it is the merciless scale on which our life is weighed daily and found to be too light.” -Simmel (2012 [1897])

Abstract

Fashion model selection is a targeted case of aesthetic evaluation. For almost 100 years—beginning with data which Herbert Blumer collected in the 1930s—scholars have tried to understand how models are selected. Most have taken a critical and structural approach. I rely instead on a microsociology which centers endogenous decision processes. It highlights the agency and constraints of situational perception and situational stratification, yielding a novel analysis of the casting encounter. Data comes from an ethnography of a fashion week in a semi-peripheral city. It includes backstage evaluations gathered during a stint as a casting agent. I find that agents surprisingly ignore faces, instead focusing on the embodied cues of height/heels, the walk, and body size. Sustained microsociological analysis opens a layered mode of perception highlighting the dynamics of time, attention, emotion, and situations.

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Notes

  1. Studies of subcultures document antinomian beauty ideals, but they seem confined to marginal social worlds (e.g., Hebdige 1991). Feminists theorize both resistance and conformity among women (Butler 2007 [1990]; Chapkis 1986; Collins 2004a). Research comparing sexual attraction among genders can be ambiguous in measuring either physical attractiveness or power/status (cf. MacKinnon 1987; Martin 2005; McClintock 2014).

  2. I define fashion as dynamic conformity to a modal representation of taste, but see also the review of Aspers and Godart (2013). In both classical aesthetics and conflict theory, class distinction is the dominant motor of change (e.g., Kant 1978 [1796], 148–149; Veblen 2007 [1899]).

  3. I use “attractiveness” to refer to the psychological operationalization of beauty as “only average,” i.e., a composite (Langlois and Roggman 1990). I want to be very clear, however, about the consistent theoretical prioritization of sociological perspectives, especially social constructionism. Readers may freely substitute with the word “conventional” if they are ethnomethodologically inclined, or “commercial” if they prefer critical theory or Bourdieusian field theory (Bourdieu 1993; Entwistle 2002; Horkheimer and Adorno 1972 [1944]; Mears 2011).

  4. Doing gender is another example, including the attention to or recognition of body parts for trans people (Bettcher 2014; Garfinkel 1967, 116–185).

  5. Based on interviews and an analysis of composite cards (modeling resumes), I estimate that fewer than half of the models who attend casting calls are represented by an agency. Most are unpaid.

  6. Separate analysis of racial politics is ongoing but does not seem to directly affect the categorical cues identified in this article (see the discussion section). As Craig argues (2002, 75–77), there has largely been an integrationist approach to beauty since the 1970s.

  7. Because judgments are not made independently, the evaluations below do not demonstrate inter-rater reliability.

  8. For readers who wonder about the power of habitus as a trans-situational disposition, I offer two responses. First, I do not think we need recourse to deep inscriptions or conditions of necessity to analyze resonance or attentional subcultures. Laboratory experiments provide ample evidence not only that bounded judgments routinely grow closer, but that “learning” is easily extended into multiple “generations” of participants (Asch 1951; Sherif 1936; Zucker 1977). Second, though conventionally attractive people have higher socio-economic status, the background of models and cultural intermediaries is diverse (Entwistle 2009, 8; Koppman 2015; McClintock 2014, 586; Mears 2012, 138). About half of the staff (including myself) had prior experience in modeling or dance.

  9. Eye contact is a key feature of intimate or confrontational tension (Milgram 1965, 61; Simmel 2009b [1908], 570–572; Wohl 2017); even professional soldiers have difficulty killing when eye contact is present (Collins 2008, 78–80).

  10. Female-presenting models are more likely to lie about their weight and male-presenting models about their height. Just as boxing coaches can visually estimate weight within a few pounds (Wacquant 2004, 68), agents can typically guess height within an inch.

  11. Some bandleaders similarly report image problems with disparate height lineups (Clinton 2014, 35–36). On the despotism of symmetry, see Simmel (1991 [1896]).

  12. Four- to six-inch heels are also reported in sex work bars and VIP nightclubs (Hoang 2015, 127; Mears 2015, 114), suggesting an emotionally heightened presentation of femininity.

  13. Gender scholars of course make the same observation about gender itself (e.g., Ortner 1972).

  14. The first three models in any casting lineup, probably as a result of self-selection, are the most likely to have strong walks.

  15. The meaning of “plus size” is variable, and expectations are significantly smaller in modeling than in retail (Czerniawski 2015; Gruys 2012). At SPC Fashion Week it includes any body larger than size 6.

  16. There are a number of occasions in my fieldwork when less attractive staff, guests, and other models disparage female models with criticisms of narcissism and vanity. These and similar examples (available in Czerniawski 2015; Gruys 2012) could be productively analyzed with social identity theory (or see Granberg 2011).

  17. Social media presence for models is a background factor at castings (at best) because decisions are made on the spot. Personal familiarity—recognition of a model from last season’s show, for example—is positively associated with selection (as in Rivera 2010).

  18. Dozens of studies could be cited on the psychology of attractive faces, but again see Langlois and Roggman (1990) for an exemplar.

  19. Glasses can create glare with camera flashes. They may also be interpreted as unnatural or a biological signal of disability. Charles Manson broke the glasses of female Family members (Bugliosi 1994 [1974], 157–158).

  20. The attention space in fashion photography is strongly biased toward fashion capitals (Aspers 2001; Godart 2014).

  21. Again, because of differences in contest versus status mobility (see the methods section above), their findings on the brokerage role of modeling agents do not apply in the setting I studied. I think this is a function of industry centrality—commercialism increases outside the core because of relatively scarce resources—but we need to study sites outside of fashion capitals to know more (Hoppe 2020; Mears 2012). Population ecology could lend significant insight, especially if combined with interviews (e.g., Carroll and Swaminathan 2000).

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Joanne Entwistle, David Grazian, Laura Grindstaff, Jerry Jacobs, Robin Leidner, Jason Schnittker, and the anonymous journal reviewers. Special thanks to Randall Collins. Versions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association and at a workshop at the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University.

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This project received support from the President Gutmann Leadership Award at the University of Pennsylvania.

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    Alexander D. Hoppe

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Hoppe, A.D. The Microsociology of Aesthetic Evaluation: Selecting Runway Fashion Models. Qual Sociol 45, 63–87 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-021-09496-x

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