The Grammar of Glamour part 2

Abstract

The Grammar of Glamour; Part 2 explores the business of surface appearances through the use of imagery within independent businesses concerned with the manufacture of glamour. The intention is to ask how the spell of glamour can be broken. And at the same time how the power of material objects can transform the identity and status of those who own them. We cannot now begin to imagine what non-photographic glamour might be like, but we can ask what it represents within an economic, political, even philosophical, system.

I want to look at hair salon interiors and specifically to the use of commercial and other images within these interiors. What do we find – posters and advertisements using stock images, sometimes arranged among children’s drawings that point to the owners private life; a blending of public and private space manifest in the décor. There has been little written about the mass production of photographic imagery as part of advertising and commercial culture (Ramamurthy 1997). Paul Frosh has made a strong case for the need to examine stock and commercial photography precisely for its status as overlooked, mundane and ubiquitous, forming the visual ‘wallpaper of consumer culture’. (Frosh 2003:145)