Fetish fashion refers to the style of clothing, shoes, hair etc,
created to arouse sexual excitation. Extreme and provocative, this
style isn't usually worn in daily life, however some separate
attributes are widely used as a part of subculture. Some people,
especially celebrities, mistake fetish fashion pieces for everyday
clothing, totally unaware that putting on mesh fetish stockings to
go
to the supermarket, they have a rather ridiculous look.
Fetish clothing is commonly made of latex, leather, rubber,
nylon,
fishnet or spandex. Among the most popular fetish fashion accessories
are corsets, stiletto heels, full-body latex catsuits, hobble skirts,
garters and More unusual items include stylized costumes such as Gothic
style dresses and Nazi chic objects featuring long leather trenchcoats
with tall collars and high epaulets, jackboots and peaked caps with
reversed Swastika.
Experts disagree about fetish fashion origins. Some of them claim that
fetish tradition became mainstream in the late 1700's when such fetish
fashion attributes as hobble skirts and corsets weren't available to
the majority of society. Others lean towards the hypothesis that fetish
fashion is rooted in the late 1940's when leather-wearing subculture
spread among the homosexual men of England. Thus, after World War II
the gays of London started using leather clothing as identification.
From the other hand, leather things could be appreciated for
themselves, without associating with a certain sexual orientation. 20
years later leather fetish
subculture became mainstream,
popularized by rock musicians like the Rolling Stones and the Who.
Nowadays many famous designers use fetish elements to create some
marginal models for adults. Thus, Vivienne Westwood and
Malcolm
McLaren, inspired be BDSM
subculture, presented a collection of
restrictive clothing, such as bondage trousers connecting the legs of
wearer with straps. Cinema offers a large variety of fetish fashion
objects, like Michelle Pfeiffer's full body latex catsuit in Batman
Returns or Carrie-Anne Moss' full body latex catsuit in Matrix.
One of the first magazines focusing on fetish fashion was Bizarre which
gained its popularity in the 1950's. A more contemporary edition
– Skin Two – covers different aspects of fetish
fashion all
over the world.
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