Revisiting the Gaze

In 1975 Laura Mulvey published her seminal essay on the male gaze, ushering in a new era in understanding the politics and theory of looking at the female body. Since then, feminist thinking has expanded upon and revised Mulvey’s theory and much of the Western world has seen a resurgence in feminist activism as well as the rise of neoliberalism and shifts in digital culture and (self-)representation. For the first time, this book addresses what it means to look at the fashioned female body in this radical new landscape.

In chapters exploring the fashioned body within contexts such as queerness, veiling, blackness, pregnancy, fatness, and criminality, Revisiting the Gaze addresses intersectional debates in feminism and re-evaluates the concept of the gaze in light of recent social and political changes. With an interdisciplinary approach, bridging fashion and fine art, this book opens the door to discussions about the male gaze and the fashioned body.

Morna Laing is Assistant Professor in Fashion Studies at The New School, Parsons Paris, France. She is the author of Picturing the Woman-child: Feminism, Fashion and the Female Gaze (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Jacki Willson is a University Academic Fellow in Performance and Culture in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, UK. She is the author of The Happy Stripper: Pleasures & Politics of the New Burlesque (2008) and Being Gorgeous: Feminism, Sexuality and the Pleasures of the Visual (2015).