Michael Hone

From an accumulation of research, I developed a design methodology that focuses on exaggerating the muscular ideals and hair, adapting the natural appearance of power and strength into a monstrous, surreal vision of idealistic masculinity.

This design methodology focuses on the proportions of a hyper-masculine physique that has been deemed the ideal by bodybuilders, fascist rulers, dictators and by mass culture. It extends these proportions to an extreme that alters the appearance of the silhouette from hair to feet into something unnatural and surreal. It also uses a contradiction of enlarged and diminished areas to reference the contrast between powerful and weak and the opposed perceptions of those afflicted with muscle dysmorphic disorder.

The aim is to create a false sense of dominance, a superficial built up structure, where the smaller areas reveal a much smaller interior, weakness hidden within the overall. This is to create the feeling not of a genuine power, but of the desire to appear powerful along with concealing the wearers face with hair to remove all individuality.