“I know I am posing”… Feeling the Pose in Post-war Fashion Modeling

Abstract

In Camera Lucida Roland Barthes outlines how posing for the camera is a performative act in which one lends oneself “to the social game”; therefore “I pose, I know I am posing, I want you to know that I am posing, but (to square the circle) this additional message must in no way alter the precious essence of my individuality.” This article examines some of the ways in which the pose and act/action of posing have been articulated in selected accounts of post-war fashion modeling. In doing so it questions the ways in which the pose and act/action of posing may be considered in terms of what Raymond Williams terms “structures of feeling,” which is feeling as both a product of, and as productive in, social, historical, cultural and individual contexts.