Very Important People
Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit
Ashley Mears
Step inside the elite world of "models and bottles" with Very Important People, written by sociologist and former fashion model Ashley Mears. This captivating narrative exposes the intricate economy of beauty, status, and money that lies behind the spectacular displays of wealth and leisure at exclusive clubs and parties worldwide. Mears spent 18 months in this world to uncover the troubling realities of gender inequality, as beautiful young women are used to boost the status of men. Dive into this thought-provoking book that unveils the dark side of the New Gilded Age.
Publish Date
2020-05-26T00:00:00.000Z
2020-05-26T00:00:00.000Z
Goodreads Rating
3.78
ISBN
9780691168654
Categories
Recommendations
2
Recommendations
2020-03-05T00:00:00.000Z
I loved this book, my favorite of the year so far. Haven’t you ever wondered why more books shouldn’t just take social phenomena and explain them, rather than preening their academic feathers with a lot of non-committal dense information? Well, this book tries to explain the Miami club where renting an ordinary table for the night costs 2k, with some spending up to 250k, along with the underlying sociological, economic, and anthropological mechanisms behind these arrangements – source2020-06-23T01:56:34.000Z
Both Ashley Mears’ books are ethnographies of elites (Pricing Beauty about the modeling industry and Very Important People about the global Patty circuit)
One element that I think characterizes how ethnography can be methodologically sophisticated is access to informants. – source