May 2009
8 posts
introduction.
“Peaches, what’s the best thing about living in Brooklyn?” asks the text scrawled, in marker, across the bottom of the photos of Peaches Geldof’s place. Switching colors, she answers back: “The lights when you cross the Brooklyn bridge, and the Spanish gangsters at the bagel shop who hit on me…also Max Drummey.” Charmingly multi-colored, with doodles,...
“None; I am very trendy.”
– Todd Selby in response to “What trends do you wish would just go away?” (New York Magazine’s The Cut)
feminist theory in the selby.
Other themes run throughout the photos. Despite their differences, the women all seem to pose the same: either playful-adorable-sexy with hints of Lolita, or playful-adorable-sexy with hints of maturity. What’s striking is the amount of leg in each photo featuring women; rather than obvious sexuality, the naked-from-the-waist down has an air of implied sexuality. Maria Sturken and Lisa...
conspicuous consumption & taste cultures.
The advertiser’s stated interest, the article and the mention in the NYT’s blog The Moment, the other interviews Selby has done; these instances beg the question, why do we care so much? Why this fascination with others “stuff” and living spaces? Stuart Ewen argues in All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture that “the acquisition of style...
a little bit of the hyperreal & postmodernism.
It’s tempting to end with “The Selby is representative of so many things it shouldn’t be” kind of deal. It shows women in a somewhat exploitative light. It shows the rise of commercial culture and obsession with style, borne out of wanting “stuff.” Everything ends up commodified, anyways (thanks, Adorno & Horkheimer). It shows the delicate balance between...