Factual Story Submission

TURNING DISABILITY INTO POSSIBILITY

The perception of beauty has never been a universal notion. Be it blonde or brunette, slender or voluptuous, pint-sized or Amazonian…we each have differing opinions on what we consider beautiful and desirous. These opinions are not constant either, as our ideas of beauty are reconfigured on a day-to-day basis in accordance with new trends and fashions. So we change. We change our hair, our clothes, our height, treating our bodies like four-limbed canvases to paint and drape with colour. So what happens when the canvas itself is reconfigured and the human body no longer resembles the form that we have always known? With the loss of an arm or a leg does our capacity for beauty diminish or does it simply mean that it is time to re-access our traditional views and see possibilities instead of limitations?

Mullins' wooden legs designed by McQueen

Thirty-five year old Aimee Mullins is woman who poses the ultimate challenge to conventional ideas of what is sexy and beautiful in a body. The blonde bombshell has featured in films, walked fashion runways and posed for magazine covers around the world, with each public accolade for beauty accomplished on one of her many pairs of prosthetic legs. Born with fibular hemimelia or missing fibula bones, both of Mullins’ legs were amputated below the knee when she was one year old. Rejecting the idea of disability or deformity, Mullins has turned her condition into a chance to transform the human body into art and transcend human boundaries of design and form. Her legs have become wearable sculptures, embracing the poetry and art of design and abandoning the need to replicate humanness. Legendary fashion designer Alexander McQueen designed a pair of beautifully crafted wooden legs for Mullins to walk on in his 1999 London Fashion Show. Made from solid ash, the prosthetics were intricately carved with grapevines and magnolias, creating a pair of enviable legs that epitomized artistry of the human body and pushed the boundaries of functional fashion.

Mullins actively embraces her body’s capacity to change and transform, boasting of her ability to be five different heights. Alternating between a comfortable five-foot-eight to a breathtaking six-foot-one, Mullins is able to defy the limitations of a normal individual to far greater effect than a pair of high-heels. To the untrained eye, her gorgeous silicone pins appear as flawlessly finished legs, drawing attention from crowds not because they are fake, but because they are stunning. One friend of Mullins went as far to exclaim “But Aimee, that’s so unfair,” when she noticed Mullins’ radically increased height during a night out, which is not your typical reaction when speaking to someone who has lost both her legs.

Mullins' pair of "glass legs"

It is no secret that most individuals would shy away from someone who is missing a limb or whose body deviates from the expected form. People will often either avert their gaze or overcompensate by maintaining fixed eye contact, looking anywhere but at the obviously absent limb. With new innovations in science and design, such an expectation is inverted, as onlookers are instead encouraged to not only look and stare, but to admire. Art and science are no longer mutually exclusive spheres and the normally devastating disruption to the human form can open up new arenas for design and creation. In Mullins’ own words, “Poetry matters. Poetry is what elevates the banal and neglected object to a realm of art. It can transform the thing that might have made people fearful into something that invites them to look”. In addition to her hand carved wooden legs, Mullins has in her collection a pair of woven carbon fiber legs modeled after a cheetah, legs that look as if they are comprised of glass or pure crystal, but were actually fashioned from optically clear polyurethane (bowling ball material) and even a pair of unusual prosthetics cast in soil and interwoven with plant root systems. Many of the prosthetics were worn by Mullins when she appeared in the highly acclaimed 2003 film Cremaster 3 by contemporary artist Matthew Barney.  

With the future potential of science and art, the traditionally assigned labels of ‘disabled’ and ‘limited’ are replaced with terms such as ‘super-abled’ and ‘uncharted potential’. Advancements in bioengineering and robotics may reach a level of performance and function that surpass human capability, validating the themes and storylines of many science fiction films. Through the fusion of art, design and science, traumatic changes to the human body can now become a basis for innovation, establishing new platforms for beauty, creativity and function that transcend traditional notions and collective social opinions.

What do you think: Is this body beautiful?
Photograph of Aimee Mullins