Latex Takes Center Stage at Fashion Week
🔥 1. Latex Takes Center Stage in FW24 Fashion Weeks
From Paris to New York, latex has become more than daring nightlife wear—it’s a high-fashion staple. Designers like Rick Owens, Gucci, and Laquan Smith featured everything from latex suits and boots to opera gloves and corsetry. As Hypebae notes, “Latex gloves, another dominatrix fav, dominated runways” and “Leather, Latex and chains dominate” FW24 catwalks.
🗝️ 2. Fetish Elevated: Dilara Findikoglu + R&M Leathers (AW24)
London-based Dilara Findikoglu’s autumn/winter 2024 collection broke traditional boundaries—showing corsets, chains, harnesses, and leather hot pants alongside more wearable garments. Ruby Mariani of R&M explained:
“These pieces are about fantasy … whether you want to take that into your private life … or integrate it into an everyday look.”
🎭 3. BDSM-Inspired Accents: FW22 & Beyond
The kink trend has been simmering for seasons. Fall/Winter 2022 featured chokers, harnesses, thigh-highs, and heavy leather work across Versace, Ambush, Roberto Cavalli, and more. Hypebae called it “BDSM‑inspired fashion” becoming the “kinkiest trend.”
🧷 4. Robert Mapplethorpe-Full Inspiration
Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s SS25 menswear collection, created with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, explicitly showcased BDSM culture via eyelet harnesses, leather-bralettes, and chain-linked trousers—tying kink literature, art, and fashion together.
🕸️ 5. Berlin Fashion Week Embraces Latex & Bondage
Berlin’s cutting-edge scene leaned into fetish aesthetics again—models strutted in latex and bondage-inspired outfits, delivering “unconstrained experimentation” and feline-forward styles reflecting the city’s boundary-pushing subculture.
📚 Cultural Context: “We Are All Fetishists”
Fetish aesthetics aren’t passing—Anastasiia Fedorova’s new book Second Skin highlights how fetish elements like latex, leather, and dominatrix tropes are embedded deeply in contemporary fashion and celebrity culture, citing Dua Lipa and Sabrina Carpenter as evidence.
💡 Why This Matters
Eroding the Stigma – Elements once reserved for fetish and underground spaces are now part of mainstream fashion, challenging what’s “appropriate.”
Consent & Power Messaging – Harnesses and corsetry carry kink connotations—suggesting themes of control, vulnerability, and choice that resonate in our evolving culture.
Blurring Fantasy and Everyday – Designers like Findikoglu and R&M are offering fantasy-forward pieces for everyday wear, normalizing the erotic edge.
Kink is no longer optional—it’s pivotal in today’s fashion narrative. From high-shine latex and bondage straps on luxury runways to harness-inspired menswear and fantasy-leather collections, designers are boldly weaving erotica, power, and vulnerability into wearable art.
