When the Metropolitan Museum of Art unveiled the global press images for its upcoming Costume Art exhibition, one visual immediately captured international attention: a visceral, anatomical corset in shades of flesh and crimson.
The piece, Corset Anatomia, belongs to Renata Buzzo, the only Brazilian designer selected for the exhibition and the artist whose work was chosen to represent the show worldwide.
For Buzzo, the moment was more than a professional milestone. It arrived at a time of personal and artistic questioning, shortly after being dismissed from São Paulo Fashion Week, where her work was deemed “too unsettling” and lacking commercial appeal. She refused to dilute her vision. And then, unexpectedly, the MET reached out.
“One door had closed on the same work that opened the door to the MET,” she recalls.
“The invitation silenced critics without me having to make any move about it.”
The museum’s research and acquisitions department contacted her on behalf of Andrew Bolton, expressing interest in acquiring pieces from her collection The Body for both the permanent collection and an upcoming exhibition. Buzzo chose to donate the pieces to a gesture that reflects the magnitude of the moment for her. After reviewing her work, Bolton personally selected three pieces, later informing her that one would become the centerpiece of the exhibition’s global announcement.
“I was very happy when he shared with me that he found my work sublime,” she says.
Photos: Renata Buzzo
The Body: A Poetic Autopsy of Womanhood
The Body is a collection that merges poetry, anatomy, and social critique. It was born from personal, relational, and professional discomfort and from the contradictions of being a woman in a country that celebrates the female body while often invalidating the female author.
The collection invites viewers into two parallel journeys: the emotional narrative of a woman whose story is told through a poem, and the anatomical exploration of a body marked by the damage of relationships and societal expectations. The garments reflect this duality through exposed organs, fallen viscera, and distorted forms.
“It is a woman violated physically and emotionally. It is a desecrated body.”
Her work is deeply intertwined with her lived experience as a woman, as a professional, and as a Brazilian navigating a creative landscape where male designers are often praised while female creators fight for visibility. She recounts how a major fashion platform in her country reposted images of her MET-announced work without crediting her, naming every other designer except her.
“It is as if I were dead to them, but I am still rising and pulling their feet.”
Photos: Renata Buzzo
A Multidisciplinary Vision
Buzzo’s creative process extends beyond fashion. She writes, directs, constructs, and conceptualizes. Her presentations combine runway, visual narrative, and authorial voice, a hybrid format she developed out of necessity and artistic instinct.
As a neurodivergent creator, she experiences a cognitive rigidity tied to creative control, which manifests as a desire to build entire worlds around her collections.
“I create from the gut, from the viscera,” she says.
“Each collection is like a forceps-assisted natural birth.”
This multidisciplinary approach is precisely what allowed her work to resonate with the MET’s curatorial direction, particularly within the exhibition’s section on Anatomical Bodies.
What comes next
The recognition from the MET has opened new paths — ones Buzzo is eager to explore.
“Now I want to be an artist,” she laughs.
“I want to perpetuate my work in other museums, create new collaborations, and maybe show outside Brazil.”
Her trajectory is shifting from national to global, from emerging designer to multidisciplinary artist with a growing institutional presence.
Photos: Renata Buzzo
A Final Message
Buzzo closes with the final excerpt of her poem The Body a manifesto of resilience, transformation, and unapologetic existence:
“Exercise your personality without fear.
Sustain your desires.
Die as many times as necessary.
Spill into those who can hold you.
Because agreeing and staying silent
is the same as not existing”
Her work speaks of death, rebirth, and the refusal to disappear. And now, as the only Brazilian voice in the MET’s new Costume Art exhibition, the world is finally listening.
Photos: Renata Buzzo
