Makeover media as fashion journalism: What Not To Wear, fashion, authority, and Gonzo subjectivity

ABSTRACT

The USA-based television program What Not To Wear (WNTW) was a staple of popular fashion media, informing audiences about acceptable modes of dress and appearance. We consider how aspects of this show and its accompanying book encompass features of traditional fashion reportage – particularly advice literature – and also approaches to fashion communication that overlap with the style and concerns of “New Journalism” (those modes of reporting – sometimes called “Gonzo” – that emphasize informality, emotional engagement, and an interest in “real” people and “real” lives). By examining the text, images, and talk deployed by the book and the TV show, we indicate how WNTW perceives, constructs, and conveys the fashioned subject in ways that link makeover media to broader contexts of cultural commentary.

KEYWORDS:

• Fashion
• journalism
• reality TV
• What Not To Wear
• mass media
• Roland Barthes
• New Journalism
• Gonzo journalism
• advice literature

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arlene Oak

Arlene Oak teaches and conducts research in material culture and design studies in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta. Her research is focused on how language is related to the production, mediation, and consumption of the material world. Her scholarship has been published in the Journal of Design History, Co-Design, Design Studies, Discourse & Society, and Design and Culture.

Julia Petrov

Julia Petrov is the Curator of Daily Life and Leisure at the Royal Alberta Museum. She is also adjunct academic staff in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta. Dr Petrov is the author of Fashion, history, museums: Inventing the display of dress (Bloomsbury 2019).