It’s impossible to deny that fetishism had an impact on fashion, think indeed about corsets, tight lacing and extreme footwear.
Yet, though it is commonly believed that the punk movement helped spreading such trends, historical evidence proves that, while more modern and contemporary materials such as rubber or PVC were obviously employed in more recent times for bondage inspired designs, body constraining/shaping devices were already popular many centuries ago.
Even the statuettes depicting the Minoan Snake Goddess of Crete, appear to be wearing an elaborate belt that constricts the waist and a bosom revealing corset and what about young men’s skintight fashion from the 15th century?
Resorting to skin tight fetishist trends often helped the fashion industry and injected new life into many designers' creative veins.
Montana, Alaia and Mugler’s women, purveyors of sex rather than sensuality, come to mind, together with designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier who made a virtue out of bondage, managing to include in (more or less) every women and men’s wear collection he ever did at least one corset and a design that somehow evoked in some of its details assorted bondage straps.
Bondage often resurfaced in critically financial times: there were plenty of examples in the Spring/Summer 2009 collections, from Rodarte to Givenchy, with super-short and tight dresses in which straps in different fabrics or leather wrapped up the body, criss-crossed around the torso or created cut out effects around the breasts.
Yet the bondage theme has sort of been transforming in the last few months, morphing into two interesting branches, bandage and architectural.
The former trend consists in creating garments that look as if they were wrapped up around the body and usually leave bare portions of skin here and there.
The looks adopted by Rihanna or Lady Gaga at the recent American Music Awards can be considered as call-the-fashion-police examples of such trend while one rather interesting design that could be filed under this trend is the elastic jacket from Maison Martin Margiela's Artisanal Collection (available exclusively on Yoox from 30th November).
Further examples of the bandaged look appeared in Nathan Jenden's A/W 09 collection (strap-jackets in gray), Preen’s Resort 2010 collection (skin tight dresses with cut out motifs) and Yigal Azrouël’s S/S 2010 collection featuring designs characterised by asymmetrical cuts or bandages appliquéd on sheer fabrics.
Rather than directly descending from a trend as disturbing as the one adopted by Japanese Kegadoru (“Injured Idols”) girls with their fake injuries and bandages, the "bondage turned bandage" look is supposed to emphasise the body silhouette, but also change the body anatomy, almost creating chiaroscuro effects.
Fashion moves very quickly though nowadays and I have recently noticed that bandage has been transforming into a sort of architectural trend (maybe inspired by the Burnham Pavilion by Zaha Hadid Architects?) that has been applied also to accessories.
A rather interesting example? A few pieces by accessory brand Perrin Paris that recently produced a bag, available in silver or black leather, and a pair of black gloves that make me think about Beijing’s “bird nest” stadium.
Hopefully, there will be more architecture-based designs inspired by bondage/bandage in future months and fewer faux pases à la Rihanna/Lady Gaga.
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