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From Fringe to fashion, BDSM in the Mainstream

From Fringe to fashion, BDSM in the Mainstream

When thinking about high fashion, designers, expensive fabrics, pompous taste, and couture tend to float into the mind. You may not expect straps, tight leather, and latex to be the new wave designers are gravitating toward. To be frank, fringe is in, and the way we express ourselves privately has now bled into the public domain.

For the unprimed, I’m talking about bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism, or BDSM. Partaking in BDSM is not always inherently sexual, and it often provides a safe space for people who like to be submissive and dominant with rules and understanding. However, as extreme as some BDSM can seem from the outside, it should always be done with consent from all parties and come from a place of wanting to express our primal states of subjugation and domination. With all this said, where does fashion come into play?

Starting in the 2000s, mainstream fashion LGBTQ icon Lady Gaga started to appear in a patterned leather suit that hugged her body skin tight for her hit single “Bad Romance,” getting people to speak about her peculiar sense of fashion. Continuing this trend, she made her appearance at the 2011 Grammy awards enclosed in an egg, while her stagehands and models were draped in form-fitting latex in beige. The choice to go against the grain of the night’s traditional opulence created a stir for designers looking for new fabrics to dress people in. Gaga is not the only celeb to bring in a touch of kink into her red carpet looks, creating a stir in couture.

Iris Van Herpen and her 2012 fall/winter haute couture followed the many conventions of latex fashion and turned it on its head by incorporating large, buoyant silhouettes a la Rei Kawakubo and her avant-garde form factors. Van Herpen’s designs garnered a lot more buzz during the 2018 Met Gala’s “fashion in the Catholic imagination” theme worn by Solange Knowles, who showed up looking as ethereal and subjective as a biblically accurate angel. Even after heavenly latex, leather is one of the more prominent fabrics in the BDSM community.

Zana Bayne, a leather goods designer, has created harnesses and handbags and collabed on “sex-cessories” with Marc Jacobs which have become THE primo leather brands for BDSM and kink accessories, even outfitting Beyoncé’s backup dancers during her legendary 2016 Super Bowl performance. She is pushing leather wear even further into the stratosphere of fashion and design.

Following suit with more leather and straps, in 2019, Timothee Chalamet arrived at the Golden Globe awards in a bedazzled, black harness by Louis Vuitton and Virgil Abloh. Then Michael B. Jordan followed suit in a more colorful, pastel harness hugging his upper body during the SAG Awards, which caused quite a commotion with news and fashion outlets everywhere, shining a light on fashion accessories that have been worn by people in the leather and BDSM community for years before its jump in popularity. Some see this trend as a great opportunity to reach for more boundary-pushing fashion, while others worry about the fine line between sensual and sensible. Either way, BDSM fashion has found a new home in the mainstream.

Both positive and negative, the boundary-pushing silhouettes, and form factors give people in the BDSM and kink community new and creative ways to express their interests in a more publicly accepted manner. (No kink shaming here.) However, some argue it also allows people to adopt the aesthetic without the proper appreciation and knowledge of how far the community has gone to advocate for themselves to be seen in a more positive scope. Fashion is shrouded in a very thin veil of appreciation and appropriation and should be explored in a proper and respectful manner. 

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