On Display: Fame, Anonymity, and the Fin-de-Siècle Fashion Model

Abstract

When the animate fashion model emerged in the 1870s, cultural observers were quick to note the many paradoxes the ‘mannequin vivant’ embodied. Occupying both private and public spaces and blurring the ontological divide between the original and copy, the living fashion model questioned the boundaries between corporeality and mechanical reproduction. This essay explores the liminal position of the ‘mannequin vivant’ by situating it within another paradoxical relationship the model engendered, that of fame and anonymity. Accounts of the living fashion model during the fin de siècle period not only attest to the model’s ubiquitous media presence, but also to her anonymity. This essay proposes that the fin-de-siècle living fashion model, through its integration into the cityscape and its position in the cultural imaginary, was inextricably tied to the network of celebrity in ways that endure to this day.

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