The freakishly large breasts of Lolo Ferrari were a fetishist’s wet dream and a talisman of their owner’s mental instability. Lolo Ferrari looked like one of those venuses archaeologists dig up from cultures that are said to have worshiped the Goddess. The reality was so far from that lovely vision of harmony that it should make us wonder what the ancients were after.

It is said that Ferrari’s bust measured an incredible 71 inches. This was the end-point of a surgical odyssey that Ferrari pursued with incredible doggedness. After her breasts were increased to a breathtaking 46 inches, she found an aeronautic engineer who designed moulds for 51 inch tits, and from there increased their volume even more. Her mammary skin was stretched to the breaking point and the organs were almost completely desensitized. She had problems locating a surgeon willing to do the operations. The protuberances on her chest caused her innumerable difficulties. She could not sleep on her back or front, and her bras had to be specially designed. She was terrified of flying because of the possibility that the massive knockers might burst mid-air.

She found work, unsurprisingly as a model for pornographic photography and movies, and also worked as a dancer in the classiest topless joints of Europe.

She could be philosophical about her self-sculptural creation. “I’m like a transvestite,” she said. “I’ve created a femininity that’s completely artificial.” It might seem like lah-tee-dah sociocultural hilarity, but Ferrari was obviously mentally ill.

Her breast augmentation was only one part of her surgical adventures. She had many other operations on her nose, cheeks, lips, and other body parts. “I adore being operated on,” she said. “I love the feeling of a general anaesthetic – falling into a black hole and knowing I’m being altered as I sleep.”

She complained of growing up with a distant father and a mother who castigated her constantly. She became a bundle of nerves. Once her breasts were gigantic, she found a cult following that has spread her images across the web at thousands of sites that cater to fans of outsized mammeries. In recent years she pursued a career as a singer. Her first single was titled “Airbag Generation,” and a second was titled “Set Me Free.”

“All this stuff has been because I can’t stand life,” she said. And she couldn’t. In the weeks before her death she carefully selected a casket and specified that she should be buried with her favorite teddy bear. She took her own life with pills.

Lolo, incidentally, is French slang for tits.