Her name was Simulation: Her body was never real

Abstract

In the age of hyperreality, fairy-tale aesthetics are no longer illusions, they constitute the aesthetic logic of the real. My MA graduation collection, Her name was Simulation; her body was never real, explores the image-body: a form detached from physical referents and
endlessly reproduced through fashion and media. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard’s theory of the simulacrum, particularly the “third order” of signs, the project investigates bodily dislocation, visual deception, and technological idealization. Through textile manipulation, 3D printing, and prosthetic-inspired construction, I created garments that simulate artificial structures while
maintaining tactile softness. Key designs incorporate spherical forms and inflated volumes, inspired by Eva Fàbregas’ Pumping, to evoke a hybrid of the organic and the synthetic. The concept of the grotesque body, open, incomplete, transformable, guides the visual language of fragmentation and porous boundaries, where the body becomes a mutable image-space. Pastel colors associated with girlhood are recontextualized to critique aesthetic norms shaped by digital culture. Ultimately, the project constructs a narrative grounded in simulation: a body in perpetual transformation, an identity sculpted by signs, and an ideal that never belongs to reality. It asks: Does the body still belong to us, or has it been fully absorbed by the regime of images, filters, and tags?