On May 5, 2023, had the enriching opportunity to present my research at the conference Dressing, Making, and Breaking Bodies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Sartorial Materiality, jointly organized by the University of Montreal and the Université du Québec à Montréal. My presentation, entitled Wearing the Prosthesis to Restructure the Body, explored the intersections of fashion, technology, and embodied identity.
Featured image: Iris van Herpen, Shift Souls, Spring/Summer 2019.
Presentation Reference:
Jessica Ragazzini (5 May 2023), Revêtir la prothèse pour restructurer le corps, presentation for the conference
Vêtir, Faire Et Briser Les Corps : Regards Interdisciplinaires Sur La Matérialité Vestimentaire, organized by Anne Létourneau, Liza Petiteau, and Laura Kassar,
Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à Montréal
Exploring the Prosthetic as Garment
In this presentation, I examined how prosthetic devices may be understood not solely as medical technologies but also as sartorial extensions capable of redefining and restructuring the human body. Drawing upon perspectives from art history, fashion studies, disability studies, and posthumanist theory, I investigated the ways in which prostheses transform perceptions of corporeality and identity.
Rather than functioning merely as compensatory devices, prostheses can become expressive and creative elements that participate in the construction of individual and collective identities. Within contemporary fashion practices, they challenge normative conceptions of bodily integrity and open new possibilities for imagining the relationship between the body, technology, and selfhood.
Fashion, Prosthetics, and New Corporeal Aesthetics
This presentation was primarily devoted to an analysis of the work of Alexander McQueen, Thierry Mugler, Ying Gao, and Iris van Herpen. Through these case studies, I highlighted several ways in which prosthetic forms have been mobilized within fashion from the late twentieth century to the present day.
The discussion focused on three principal dimensions:
- The restructuring of bodies in situations of disability, examining how prosthetic technologies can reshape dominant understandings of bodily difference and embodiment.
- The production of new aesthetics of corporeality, exploring how designers employ prosthetic forms to challenge conventional ideals of beauty and to propose alternative visual languages for the body.
- The articulation of alternatives to the autonomous body through recomposition with the environment, demonstrating how fashion increasingly conceives the body as an open, relational, and technologically mediated assemblage.