Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019 by Natasha Stagg

Author:Natasha Stagg [Stagg, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Semiotext(e)
Published: 2019-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

We talked about how modeling jobs often asked Ally to shave her body hair, but she refused. Miley Cyrus had just started growing out her armpit hair then. “I had a dream about Miley once,” Ally said. “The night before, I’d had a dream about Rihanna. We were in a club and Rihanna ended up being mean to me because I think we were wearing pants that looked similar and mine were way better or something. It was stupid. But then the next night, Miley took me into this dope-ass house in LA and she was just really fucking cool, really chill. We smoked weed and got along really well.”

Maybe this was the story: like Miley and her stoned, goofy-faced and zit-creamed Instagram account, Ally reached a young audience afraid of its own shallowness, but from closer to home. “I (134)

don’t try to make myself appear significantly cooler than I actually am, if that makes sense. Like, I’m a cool person, you’re a cool person, I know a lot of fucking cool people. I’m jealous of everyone all the time, it’s terrible. Instagram doesn’t make it easier. But I try to be like, ‘Look, I broke out or I’m PMS-ing or I’m in bed and smoking cigarettes again.’ These things happen. There are plenty of people whose Instagrams I find it hard to relate to.”

Ally’s rejection of the celebrity and art worlds she’s navigated with such ease is part of what attracted artists to her. There’s something alluring about how un-aspirational her images are. Her photos were about the same things as everyone else’s—comfort, food, friends, new underwear—but there was a messy self-awareness that would make them more interesting than any other hot girl’s on your feed, at least for some time, before others started doing the same thing.

Unlike most models, Ally used her Instagram as a gallery, not a calling card. Her body of work, which was most easily represented by her own physical body, explored the ways that people—from uptight teenage girls to salivating older men—experienced desire.

Where does the insecurity stop and the sexual attraction start? If you were completely satisfied with your own body, would you feel any less anxious? Is cataloguing that body—or any body—inherently narcissistic?

“She’s an artist, yes,” said Hari, to the question of what catchall best described Ally. “And she’s a model, for sure. But I think she is too active and opinionated to be a muse. Ally is not malleable. She inspires people. She’s not sitting on anybody’s stool.”

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Aspiration

If only Krystal were awaiting a prisoner of war, a letter from a sailor, news of the survivors of a natural disaster. If only she could see him clearly, hovering like nebulous clouds on the planetarium’s domed ceiling, everything except for his face, which would be a blank flesh color compared to his clothing, his stance, and his uncalculated movements. If only she were waiting for him, watching him walking in slow motion, and suspended in hanging shadows, a person except for that unrecognizable face,

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