At face value? Image consultancy, emotional labour and professional work

This paper draws upon empirical research into the image consultancy industr y in the United Kingdom. This industry is becoming increasingly important a s a provider of knowledge and expertise to employers and individuals. We su ggest that the literature on new forms of service employment (emotional lab our and hybrid forms of work) has neglected to explore well-paid profession al employees. We argue that this group is equally implicated in societal pr essures to conform to conventional heterosexual images of femininity and ma sculinity. Pressures to conform do not have to come from management, but fr om professional bodies, the media and clients. Image consultancy provides o ne way of encouraging employees to alter their image as the advice can be p ackaged as independent of the employer and professional. We conclude that t he new profession of image consultancy is more about gender than image. Con sultants are selling codified knowledge for the construction of particularl y socially accepted or preferred forms of bodily identity.