ABSTRACT
Each week on USA network television in 1984, a taut-faced woman named Elsa Klensch hosts a programme titled ‘Style’. While the prime focus is on the new designer collections, and transports us to major fashion shows around the world, there is more. Some features centre on the homes of the people in the world of fashion design: castles in the countryside near Rome; converted farmhouses in rural Connecticut; fabulous playpens overlooking Paris. Still other items deal with the daily lives of people employed in the world (one dare not call it industry!) of fashion. We follow a tawny Milanese mannequin through her regular two-hour body and facial treatment at Sergio Valente. We observe a busy New York model, roller-skating and taking tap-dance lessons; sharing her intimate longing to ‘make it’ in the musical theatre. Accompanying commercials blend right in, telling us of the slimming value of Tab cola, or of the way that Henry Grethel clothing will lead us into accidental and anonymous romantic encounters with beautiful women-or men-in elegant hotel rooms.
