Sexualized female confidence: A new gender display in over 50 years of Italian fashion advertisements

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of female images in Vogue Italia’s fashion advertisements over more than five decades. The aims of the article were to reconstruct the evolution of female representations over time, to detect the persistence of gender displays in women’s portrayals and to ascertain the existence, in the 2000s, of the visual regime of confident appearing. To achieve these aims, a longitudinal quantitative and qualitative content analysis was carried out on 1963 ads and 2568 male and female models. The research found an evolution of women’s images over time, the decline of some traditional genderisms and a resexualization of the female portrayals in the 2000s, interlaced with the confident-appearing visual regime. What emerged was a new gender display – a sexualized confidence – that does not eliminate gender differences or their structure of power but concentrates them in portraits of assertive and narcissistic women.