Unless one happens to be strutting round that Sunday gathering at Montreal Fetish Weekend, one isn’t usually showing off their latex wardrobe on the street. Would that we could dare to wear what we love so much during our work hours, or simply stepping to the grocery most of us surely would. But we’re not dressing so much for the street in those fantasy outfits we covet. It seems though that mainstream fashion is pretty much taking what the everyday guy or girl is wearing on the street and putting it on the runway, making it the fashion to aspire to. At both the recent New York Fashion Week, as well as Paris’s own show week that just passed, street fashion was very much in evidence.
The ‘streetwear’ aesthetic is nothing new of course. But with the much acclaimed Kanye “Yeezy Season 3” show at Madison Square Garden at the just past New York Fashion week, the French label Vetements pieces being seen across runways in France’s capital, Rihanna creating oversized hoodies and “deconstructed” sweats for her Fenty x Puma collection, and fashionista audiences sitting at shows in ripped jeans and tee’s, the time is now for a decided non-haute couture look.
The catch of course is that when it comes to major fashion houses creating these wardrobe pieces, one can come to pay lots for a hoodie, tattered pants or sweats.
As mentioned before, latex fans don’t get so much to work our wardrobe into streetwear…or if we do we have to be extra creative doing so. Surely we can get out and about in a latex dress or Damask Vest but practicality is an issue with long-term latex wear. Yes, we have hoods, but we don’t truly have hoodies, and what we might create to be worn over the head would be worn for a completely different purpose then what Rihanna might create. ‘Mainstream’ is a buzz word for us fantasy wardrobe designers, but we’ve as much always considered it an honor to be part of a population of like-minded individuals relishing our alternative-to-streetwear status.
