On the fashionalization of digital devices: a study of the representation of mobile phones in fashion magazines

Abstract

We asked when and how mobile phones are represented in Vogue (US) and L’Officiel (FR) between 1993 and 2017, and in what sense their presence in such magazines can be understood as making them into fashion items. The question is warranted since these magazines act as critical gatekeepers to fashion, at the same time as it has been argued that the latter is spreading its influence from clothes to other objects. We study the occurrence, changing styles and visual aesthetics of phones through a quantitative and a qualitative analysis. The former shows mobile phones did appear in the magazines, indicating that the important gatekeepers allow these devices to enter the fashion world. The qualitative analysis reveals that the aesthetic representation of mobile phones both conforms to and diverges from how garments are aestheticized in these magazines. The overall picture is one of a fluctuating and heterogeneous relation, with intermittent and temporary interactions between fashion gatekeeping and the digital devices. When carefully studying the interest in displaying the digital objects in these magazines we see a rather limited influence and not a trend.