Boutique (vidriera). Museo Herzliya,
Tel Aviv, Israel

Fine leather goods meet the eye as it scans the boutique’s front window. Fancy evening gowns, corsets, elegant coats and sporty jackets are displayed on mannequins alongside handbags, purses, men’s shoes and ladies’ high heeled shoes, tastefully and carefully arranged on shelves and hangers. Is this subversive art, or is it merely the latest vogue in the fashion world? It is precisely towards that elusive split second, when the viewing context is blurred and it becomes unclear whether the experience is consumerist, design‑minded or museal, that Nicola Costantino channels her creative energies.

All the fashion items in this boutique are made of ‘real leather’. So real that it tempts one to touch, feel and even sniff the products. A closer look reveals a chilling resemblance to human skin. Costantino has developed and refined a unique technique of silicon casting and polyurethane injection, whereby she obtains this striking similarity. This synthetic material used to create the garments is combined with real hair, and patterned with fine casts of human nipples (always male nipples) and bodily orifices such as navels and anuses.

Operating on the borderline between art, fashion and gender Costantino’s works have been exhibited in extra‑artistic contexts as well, such as in the