Incredible Beauty

For years artist Katerina Jebb has been collaborating with good friend Tilda Swinton in making satirical shorts. When gallery owner Gloria Maria Cappelletti happened upon one of these parody advertisments last year, she encouraged Jebb to expand on the series, and the result is Simulacrum and Hyperbole. Opening on Thursday at the Gloria Maria Gallery in Milan, the show features an installation that includes a television set playing Jebb's imaginary channel Lucid TV and seven cheeky films about consumerism and the beauty industry, with a little help from the artist’s famous friends. Here’s a rundown of the imaginary products they're selling.

Tilda Swinton for Life Eraser
The alabaster-skinned Scottish thespian promotes a life-changing skincare cream in this 20-minute video, in between chatting about her humanitarian work and being a Buddhist. Life Eraser claims to be a revolutionary cream that will not only erase your wrinkles but your life too.

Isabelle Townsend for Mind and Soul Control
The former face of Ralph Lauren sends up the over-prescribed masses in her promotion of a fake anti-depressant that sedates users into “a constant state of terminal inertia.”

Florence Thomassin for Oral Fix
The underground star channels the French New Wave in her advert for the smokeable rolled tube that satisfies all sorts of Freudian fixations.

Betony Vernon for Real Woman
The erotic jeweler poses naked as a “living” doll that walks, talks and evolves. Its tagline says it all: “The real thing only better.”

Arielle Dombasle for Trouble in Paradise
The famed French-American beauty has been signed as the face of this new mind-altering body powder—“upon application the user would enter into a delusional state causing a regression,” Jebb explains.

Kristin Scott Thomas for Je Reviens
The award-winning British actor swirls in front of a fountain to the tune of West Side Story’s “I Feel Pretty” for The British Cryonics Institute. The campaign encourages the public to plan their afterlife as they bid you to wake up in 3015.

Kylie Minogue for Beautiful Body
The petite but perfect body of the Australian pop icon fronts the campaign of this London-based insurance company that guards your "precious assets."