Table of Contents

Preface Fashion and the dream Introduction Part I: Fashion and Capitalism: a system for producing the dream 1. Fabricating desire: press and advertising 2. Haute couture, the apotheosis of the dream 3. The circulation of the dream: fashion and globalization Part II: Working in Fashion or “lucky to be there” 4. On the threshold of the dream: the salespeople 5. The greater the prestige, the lower the pay: the rules of the game for fashion workers 6. Prestige and precariousness: symbolic and material geographies 7. At the heart of the dream: the designer-stylists Part III: The dream and those who work in it 8. At work with an up-and-coming fashion designer 9. Knowing how to “be there”: work relationships 10. Getting into fashion, creating a persona, coping in fashion, getting out of fashion Conclusion

Promotional Information

A fascinating analysis of the invisible dynamics of the fashion industry - including the exploitation of those who work within it - and an important contribution to its deglamorization.

About the Author

Giulia Mensitieri has a doctorate in social anthropology and ethnology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. Her research focuses on globalisation, the transformations of work, and the coveted imaginary worlds produced by contemporary capitalism. Natasha Lehrer is an award-winning writer and translator. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement and The Nation, and elsewhere. She has translated books by Nathalie Léger, Chantal Thomas, Georges Bataille, Robert Desnos, and the Dalai Lama, among others. She won a Rockower award for journalism in 2016, and in 2017 her co-translation (with Cécile Menon) of Suite for Barbara Loden, by Nathalie Léger, won the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize.

Reviews

[The book's] arguments are compelling. Mensitieri skilfully shows how fashion thrives on its own image of inaccessible glamour: not just selling aspirational fantasy via luxury goods, but also taking advantage of those who produce and help to sell these goods by making them feel “lucky to be here” in this world of dream-making.
*British Vogue*

Mensitieri’s book is a meticulously researched ethnographic study of the immaterial production of fashion … Although fashion is its main focus, Mensitieri’s book also cleverly turns its critical lens on other fields of supposedly creative endeavour – including academia – where a similarly precarious workforce props up an industry based on constant flexibility, blurred boundaries between work and life, and the promise of a fulfilling career. It is no wonder that it has troubled the French fashion industry. It should.
*Times Higher Education*

A fascinating insiders’ account of fashion.
*Stylist*

Expose[s] a culture of exploitation across the industry.
*Vogue Business*

It’s no secret that the fashion world is only beautiful from a distance. [This book] provides substance and critical context to the truism. The findings are rivetingly awful … Mensitieri’s academic approach and deeper analysis stop the book from simply being a scathing tell-all or a cheap dig at terrible people who have no self-awareness. The point she makes in her wider analysis can just as easily be applied to most of the jobs across all the arts, media and culture sectors.
*Bidisha, British broadcaster, critic and journalist*

Studded with lucid and chilling vignettes that will stick in your memory, Mensitieri’s book is a remarkable analysis of how creative capitalism persuades people to work for nothing in the glamor industry, and why their poverty is anything but passionate.
*Andrew Ross, New York University, USA*

A riveting and revelatory expose, The Most Beautiful Job takes us behind-the-scenes of fashion’s phantasmagoria to highlight the precarious, oft-exploited workforce propelling the fashion industry. Mensitieri is a deft researcher, masterful storyteller, and astute critic of contemporary capitalism. Her account is a must-read for anyone interested in the harsh realities of the creative economy.
*Brooke Erin Duffy, Cornell University, USA*

Marshalling interviews, observations, and history, Mensitieri’s portrayal of the underbelly of Parisian fashion labor delivers a devastating critique of the brutal exploitation behind some of the world’s biggest fashion houses; this is a bold critique of creative jobs under late capitalism.
*Ashley Mears, Boston University, USA*