Transnational celebrity and the fashion icon: The case of Tilda Swinton, ‘visual performance artist at large’

European Journal of Women's Studies 23 (4):401-414 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Tilda Swinton’s status as a fashion icon exemplifies the contradictory functions that Walter Benjamin attributes to fashion as both exemplifying commodity fetishism and expressing a utopian ‘image wish’. This vexed relationship with fashion inflects Swinton’s cinematic performances, enhanced by her emphasis on disguise and transformation that calls into question the nature of identity and its authenticity. Her persona speaks to the fluid and fragmented dimensions of contemporary European identities, which are rooted, but also cross borders, national and otherwise; similarly, her public presence testifies to the way that contemporary culture has generated new forms of celebrity as a means of representing identities in which the negotiation of gender is a significant component.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,297

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The philosophical aspects of fashion in the views of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht.H. Skalatskaya - 2013 - Epistemological studies in Philosophy, Social and Political Sciences 4 (23):271-277.
Imagining a Future of Sonic Fashion.Vidmina Stasiulyte - 2017 - Utopian Studies 28 (3):547-561.
Russh and the ‘all-Australian’ girl?Rosie Findlay - 2022 - Feminist Theory 23 (3):312-326.
Fashion Works.Eileen Boris - 2017 - Feminist Studies 43 (1):169.
Touched by Fashion: On Feeling What we Wear.Laura T. Di Summa - 2025 - British Journal of Aesthetics 65 (1):81-96.
“I Am an Immigrant”: Fashion, Immigration and Borders in the Contemporary Trans-global Landscape.Flavia Loscialpo - 2019 - Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture 23 (6):619-653.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-11-26

Downloads
12 (#1,376,176)

6 months
2 (#1,690,857)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Arcades Project.Walter Benjamin, Howard Eiland & Kevin Mclaughlin - 1999 - Science and Society 65 (2):243-246.

Add more references