Visions of Sugarplums

[cbertsch]

In sorting through my extremely large stack of things I want to scan today, I came across the Anthropologie holiday catalogue. The chain is a spin-off of Urban Outfitters, making it a "red state" enterprise, since the company's big-wigs donated primarily to the Republican cause. As it turns out, those donations were tiny -- less than $5000 total, according to the chart I read -- making the label seem overblown, especially compared to other "red state" concerns like Wal-Mart and Dell. This discovery doesn't change my feelings about Anthropologie, though. The company still disturbs me deeply.

The people going and out of Anthropologie retail outlets are bad enough. But it's the company's mail-order catalogue that really makes my skin crawl. It contains page after page of images designed to conjure up nostalgia for a past that never really existed, fleshed out with details worthy of soft-core pornography. Indeed, you could easily argue that Anthropologie markets nostalgia as pornography.

I suppose you could also make an argument for the store's catalogues on this basis. There's something intriguing about an image in which a woman's clothing and the furniture surrounding her generate a degree of salaciousness that is typically found only when private parts on display. Every time I look through one I think of John Berger's Ways of Seeing. What's naked in Anthropolgie catalogues are not the sultrily sullen women who grace their pages but the nexus of sex and property itself. "Buy this outfit," a typical spread says, "and you can have the body inside it."

As distressing as the regular Anthropologie catalogues are, though, the holiday one I'd set aside to scan is unparalleled in its creepiness. In addition to the usual tight-lipped women, it features children arrayed with the same coldness as pillows and drapes. Many of the "family" images in the catalogue also have festive captions. Take this one, for example:

That's right, this cheery picture is accompanied by the phrase, "visions of sugarplums." The mind reels.

Who, precisely, is having these visions? The woman, who holds the boy with the same affection she extends to the various machines she uses at her gym? The man, whose gaze comes from above the frame with the full weight of patriarchy? The boy, who looks as happy as the latest victim of extraordinary rendition? Or is it the target market for the Anthropologie catalogue that is given the gift of sugary sight, masking the bitterness of the tableau with simulacral nostalgia?

To be fair, I must admit that, for all the fury that images like this one provoke in me, they have a curious power. Maybe the answer is to regard them the same way one would a Douglas Sirk melodrama, where the pleasures of plot are subtended by a menace that cannot be contained by any narrative cage. Although it is unlikely that the photographer intended this photo to function as a critique of the catalogue, that possibility is worth exploring. And, even if the photographer didn't have any such intention, the photographs seem to have an agency of their own. Someone or something is hard at work deconstructing the upper-middle-class American dream.

Comments

[e4q.livejournal.com]

see also 'toast' http://www.toastbypost.co.uk/
the images they use tend to be rural upper class, not in the american sense, but in a 'effortless' aristocratic way, where things don't necessarily look expensive, but you still have to be rich to have them. lots of girls in floaty dresses and wellington boots and such

[e4q.livejournal.com]

oh, and, yuk!

Hmmm....

[http://users.livejournal.com/_luaineach/]

That's interesting, because weirdly inappropriate title aside, I actually like this picture. But you and I are obviously viewing it very differently because it seems obvious to me that's not the *mom*. For one, she's way too young. For two, she's wearing jeans. And no mom that would be making her kid put on a tie for wherever they are going would be wearing jeans there herself. So, from my perspective you've got the 15 year old sister coaxed into the family picture when she's in a pissy mood because she doesn't want to go spend the day with relatives in the first place, the boy sullenly being cooperative because in the last three attempts at a "holiday photo" he's been making faces a la Calvin (or Jet!) and has just now been threatened with dire consequences if he doesn't let mom get at least one photo for crissake and the dad who is standing there thinking "don't blame me, bub, I hate this tie wearing business myself and I could be home today watching the game but can we just all cooperate so that we can stop making your mom nervous and freaked out?".

As a sibling shot, I think it's fab. It doesn't, however, induce me to buy any clothes if that's its purpose.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

LOL what I find funny is that the boy has such an angry expression and is even making a fist.

[e4q.livejournal.com]

the girl has a crick in her neck.
she may also have a spot on her right side.

[(Anonymous)]

suggesting this is pornographic is about the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. get real. i can't imagine what you think of the victoria's secret catalog! you clearly don't understand what anthropologie is all about. its an environment, a feeling, and that's what the catalog is about. they're selling the image and the vibe of the store, not just the clothes. there is a reason why they have one of the highest averages for how long customers stay in the store. there is noting wrong with that picture. what kid likes to have "dad" put a tie on him? and what "mother" wouldn't hold on to her child when he's standing on a chair so that he doesn't fall over?

[kaenne.livejournal.com]

Hey cbertsh. I like your thoughts, arguments that you gave here are quite serious and I'm agree with most of this post. Thanks for your openness.