Today, I will continue telling you about the video from TED called “12 pairs of legs”.
Aimee Mullins remembered the last conference she attended 11 years ago and said that many people believe that this conference has had a great influence on both speakers and attendees. For her, it turned out to be the launch pad to the next 10 years of her life, a time full of wonderful explorations and amazing adventures. She also elaborated about the legs she used at that time which were modeled after the hind leg of cheetah and were groundbreaking in the art of prosthetics.
Giving her speech at TED 11 years ago, she took advantage of the opportunity to call out to innovators to use their talent in order to build new artificial legs in which aesthetics and function would have the same value. A new page of Aimee’s life began when the editor of the magazine “ID” made her its cover story.
Aimee also had numerous appearances around the world telling people about the cheetah legs. She was often told that she didn’t look disabled, which prompted her to explore the topic of beauty and the meaning of being disabled.
Interestingly enough, that magazine was sent to fashion designer Alexander McQueen and photographer Nick Knight who further helped to develop this conversation regarding beauty. Three months later, Aimee had her first fashion shoot in London and three months after that she took part in a runway fashion show on a pair of solid ash hand-carved legs. Nobody knew that those legs were artificial but thought that they were wooden boots. They were surely a stunning piece of art covered with grape wines and magnolias. This was a case when poetry transformed an object which might have scared people into something, which made them pause to look at and to try and better understand it.
