The neo-liberal fashion image: Banality and managerial kitsch

Jorg Colberg’s analysis of ‘neo-liberal realism’ includes images of celebrities, landscapes and portraiture but does not extend to examining the role of fashion photography in neo-liberal contexts. I propose a definition for the neo-liberal fashion image, drawing on Botz-Bornstein’s theory of deculturation, which identifies a flattening and decontextualization of political motifs in the service of the neo-liberal paradigm. This is particularly evident in contemporary fashion images describing themselves as political through their titles, associated keywords, settings and styling, that nonetheless visualize a reductive and aestheticized representation of global politics. A 2014 fashion editorial set in the United Nations headquarters serves as my case study. I propose three characteristics of the neo-liberal fashion image: decultured excellence, banality and the displacement of the visceral and violent. These photographs prioritize stylistic qualities in the representation of complex political ideas and cultural realities, eliminating nuances and conflict, and constructing a bureaucratic and simplified interpretation. The proliferation of these images in post-millennial fashion media contributes to existing narratives of security, seamless supranational integration and the glorification of the neo-liberal world order.