CUTE, QUAINT, HUNGRY AND ROMANTIC GLAMOROUSNESS
who slumps in chairs, brazenly straddles fire hydrants, fanatical of fashion fetishists, that the color of their fin
and sprawls on street curbs, oblivious to the damage gernail polish is coordinated with their lipstick, their
being done to her white silk shantung "cocoon" dress belt buckles with their earrings. The contemporary
and her canary yellow tuxedo pants. What's more, she fashion plate is a make-believe enemy of the very aes
is frequently careless about her grooming, specifically, thetic she embodies, a law unto herself, a rebel who is
about her hair, which can be as tangled as a rag doll's, constantly flouting traditionally feminine poses and im
a windswept rat's nest of frazzled split ends, as if she possibly ornate coiffures, disobeying the strictures that
had just participated in a high-speed chase in a con the consumer must follow to the letter even as she en
vertible. Bad posture and bad grooming are key com vies the model's license to transgress the intricate and
ponents of contemporary glamor because they exhibit constantly changing regulations that make dressing
the contempt that this sylph-like slob feels for the dress such a risky enterprise.
she is wearing, a blase attitude that sends an unequivo While manufacturers have devised subtle ways oflur
cal message to readers that that woman in the snake ing the consumer, only the most affluent people can
skin Versace dress and Medusa curls is above posing, actually afford to buy the clothing and accessories ad
above trying to look good, above conforming to social vertised in Vogue. The outfits of models pouting in
expectations. Her languid stances and disheveled ap chain-mail mini-skirts or strutting bare-chested down
pearance serve an explicitly ideological function, that the catwalk in conservative business suits unbuttoned
of showing how little glamor matters to her, how she to the waist bear little resemblance to the wrinkled
holds in disdain the very thing her admirers most de khakis, Lacoste shirts, down parkas, and baggy Polo
sire: to make certain that they look perfect, that when sweaters found in most women's closets. In fact, just as
they venture out of doors every hair is in place, that the "wondrously articulated classic sauces" and the
their pantyhose don't sag, that the straps of their bras "coconut-milk broth [that] smooths the dissonant
don't show, that their slips aren't hanging raggedly notes of fiery chiles" in Bon Appetit and Gourmet bear an
below their hemlines, and even, in the case of the most inverse relation to what we really eat-the "big 01' juicy
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