This Tesla Coil-Equipped Prosthetic Leg Is a Shocking Fashion Statement

For virtually all of the 20th century, prosthetics were designed to look as much as possible like their natural counterparts as possible, which was a goal that was rarely achieved. But athletes like Oscar Pistorius, a Paralympic gold medal-winning runner from South Africa, have proven that prosthetics aren’t anything to be ashamed of — though murdering your girlfriend definitely is. It’s now obvious that a prosthetic limb can be beautiful in its own right, and this Tesla coil-equipped prosthetic leg is a stunning example of how far they’ve come.

This prosthetic leg was worn by musician, model, and performance artist Viktoria Modesta for a commercial advertising Rolls Royce’s line of Black Badge cars, which includes the new Wraith. Modesta, who was born in Latvia under the USSR, describes herself as a “bionic artist.” At 20-years-old, while living in London, she had an elective surgery to amputate her left leg just below the knee. She chose amputation to alleviate the suffering she was forced to endure after undergoing 15 surgeries in the Soviet medical system. Instead of trying to hide behind a “lifelike” prosthetic, she chose to embrace it and make it a part of her artistic aesthetic.

In this video, she’s wearing a prosthetic leg designed by Anouk Wipprecht and Sophie de Oliveira Barata. They first performed a 3D scan of Modesta’s body, and then they fabricated the form of the leg in nylon on an SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) 3D printer. Those nylon parts were used to mold and then cast the actual parts, which were wrapped in carbon fiber to match the Black Badge cars. Inside of a cavity in the leg, there is a Jacob’s Ladder, which sends arcs of electricity rising up between two electrodes. They even 3D-printed a bodice to match the prosthetic leg. While we don’t normally applaud advertisements, this commercial does show how prosthetics and technology can be used in fashion.