ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an opportunity for the fashion industry, medical community, AR/VR developers and technologists to respond to the realities of one-in-eight women who face the dilemmas of breast cancer, mastectomy reconstruction and body evolution. It argues that Aesthetic Flat Closure is a legitimate, feminine form of reconstruction and questions how industry can break body and gender stereotypes; encourage inclusivity and self-acceptance; prevent Flat Denial; and potentially minimize multiple invasive surgeries for millions of women.
Fashion is an exploration in becoming, in change; it helps narrate the story we each choose to present to the world. When desirable women are only portrayed with breasts and conversations focus only upon implantation, the medical, media, and fashion communities message that the ‘best’ mastectomy outcome is the appearance that ‘nothing has changed’; but for whom? The breast/s are gone forever with or without reconstruction. Most people never will lose a body part, but nearly all people experience body change, identity issues, and mourn loss. Broadly shared experiences rest even within what may appear initially to be isolated, extreme body questioning and transformation. De-stigmatizing breast-free women and non-binary bodies, is an opportunity to expand notions of natural, normal, healthy, sexuality and beauty.
