Cindy Sherman in a New Millennium: Fashion, Feminism, Art and Ageing

If feminism and the fashion industry were once seen as adversaries, given how the strictures of Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) permeated so much of second-wave feminism , a consideration of ‘fashion’ is now central to contemporary feminist scholarship. But just as the earlier critique of fashion seemed finally to have been supplanted, certain basic arguments around dress and make-up nevertheless resurfaced within contemporary feminism. The current neo-liberal climate has led to the ever-increasing consumption of ‘fashionable’ goods, provoking unease and encouraging the contested ‘protectionist discourse’ within feminism to shield young women from just such excesses. Meanwhile, the fashion world itself, arguably more powerful than ever , has across the last twenty years continued a process of legitimising itself through its various modes of alliance with the art world; it has even hijacked elements of feminist practice in the pursuit of publicity . This article suggests that the fashion industry and contemporary feminism are nonetheless alike in one significant respect: neither have properly engaged with the needs of an ageing population. It is an omission which this article will seek to examine through a discussion of the recent ‘portraits ‘ of Cindy Sherman, an artist of great interest to feminist scholars , in whose earlier work there was a deliberate ‘anti-fashion’ element. Now ‘fashionable’ herself, a leading figure in the global art world, she has collaborated with the fashion industry in rather different ways. And her ‘portraits’ of 2012, in which she reconfigured herself as imaginary Manhattan socialites in or beyond middle age, and a later series exhibited in 2016, where she appears as as a series of ageing , anonymous ‘movie stars’, reveal more general ideological tensions surrounding the representation of women , the ageing process and the fashionable ideal. It is the dissection of these tensions that underpin this article, for while Sherman’s work has been the subject of academic debate across a forty-year period, her use and critique of the ‘fashionable ‘ image has not been examined alongside an exploration of the expanding activities within the fashion industry itself ; nor have her recent images of ageing women been examined within this more general context.

This article forms part of a Special Issue on fashion and feminism. It breaks new ground in various ways: it examines the complex and still-changing relationship between fashion and feminism, analyses the way in which the ageing process is either neglected or glamourised by both fashion and feminism, and takes as its subject the most recent work of this particular artist.

In the two series, ‘Socialites’ and ‘Movie Stars’ she presents herself as various ageing, image-conscious women; these images are discussed against the cultural backdrop of the latest shifts in the ever-developing relationship between the art world , the fashion industry and celebrity culture. The images depicting the ageing film stars have not previously been discussed in academic literature.

In all these ways, the article is an original contribution to scholarship and a highly relevant one, given current demographics and an ageing population. It brings together feminist scholarship, fashion studies and an art-historical perspective.