THE "CULTURALIZATION" OF THE BODY THROUGH EXTREME MANIPULATION

Abstract

Fashion addresses the body, wraps it up and articulates it into culture. Through clothing designers adjust and reshape the body, potentiate or disguise it, falsify or distort it, following the evolution of esthetic ideals. Polarizing its discourses on areas of erotic interest, fashion manipulates volumes, angles and silhouettes. Radical fashion goes even further, reviewing anatomical contours and reinventing "the human creature." But fashion isn’t simply limited to clothes. Fashion is the industry that produces body images, imprints gestures and poses, cultivates tastes, shapes attitudes and lifestyles. Extreme manipulations are not only found in clothing, but beyond, enciphered in the anatomy of the contemporary body.