🧵 Baudrillard's Simulacra on the Runway: Fashion's Perfect Hyperreality 🔄

The latest Vogue Business Size Inclusivity Report reveals a fascinating paradox worthy of Baudrillard himself 🤔

As curve-enhancing designs flourish on runways (fake breasts at Duran Lantink, conical bras at Miu Miu), actual curvy bodies are vanishing. Of 8,703 looks across 198 shows, just 0.3% were plus-size—down from an already tiny 0.8% last season! 📉 This isn't mere hypocrisy. Through Baudrillard's lens of "Simulacra and Simulation," fashion has created "hyperreality"—where manufactured curves have replaced authentic bodies, becoming "more real than real." 💭

We're witnessing what experts like Dan Hastings-Narayanin call "fat suit psychology," where volume becomes "something to wear, experiment with, but never truly embody." Anastasia Vartanian notes: "Those curves are easier to control... Everything goes in and out exactly where it's supposed to." This perfectly exemplifies Baudrillard's fourth phase of the image—"bearing no relation to any reality whatever: its own pure simulacrum." Combined with the Ozempic era and metaverse aesthetics, fashion has entered Baudrillard's final stage where "the model comes first" and human bodies must conform.

The moral question remains: Does runway fashion have obligations beyond art? 🎭

What do you think? Are we witnessing creative freedom or a moral failure when simulacra shape our perception of reality itself? 👇

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