Fetishism and women’s underwear: from private clubs to the catwalk

The text below is the excerpt of the book The Story of Lingerie (ISBN: 9781783107452), written by Muriel Barbier and Shazia Boucher, published by Parkstone International.

Fetishism brings to mind images of sexual eccentricity and deviant attraction to certain items of women’s clothing such as stiletto heels, corsets, panties and stockings. Yet fetishist paraphernalia is gradually becoming part of everyday fashion, especially in haute couture collections.

The term fetishism was first employed by the French writer Alfred Binet in his essay called Le Fétichisme dans l’amour (Fetishism in Love) which appeared in 1887. The terms were defined by Richard Von Krafft-Ebing as “the association of desire with the image of certain parts of the body or certain female clothing”. According to the writer, this pathology is characterised by the fact that the “fetish itself replaces the person as the object of desire” and that intercourse is replaced by fetishist manipulations. For Sigmund Freud “the fetish is the substitute for the woman’s (the mother’s) phallus which the small boy believed existed and which […] he does not want to give up […] for, if the woman finds herself castrated, his own possession of a penis is threatened”. To summarise, fetishism comes from an aversion to the female genitals and the sexual partner is urged to accessorise the woman to turn her into a bearable sex object. Fetishism is the confusion of the parts and the whole and a conviction that all sensuality can be concentrated into one small detail. The fetishist’s desire means detachment from an object rarely seen and the transfer of attention to a small piece of fabric hiding the object.

Fetishism, as we speak of it today, seems to have originated in Europe in the 18th century and was distinguished as a sexual phenomenon in the second half of the 19th century. Fetishism came to be at a time (the 18th century) when sexual behaviour was evolving and libertine thinking was encouraging people to explore eroticism more openly. There was a preponderance of visual stimulation, voyeurism and fetishism in male fantasies which were often focused on clothes such as black stockings and suspenders, sexy lingerie, leather and nurses uniforms. Although Freud’s theories have been recognised and studied, psychoanalysts today stress their lack of scientific value and prefer to explain these acts with neurological, hormonal or genetic reasons which are limited to the men’s physiology. What comes to light is the tendency to become excited by visual stimuli, and this is exactly what fetishist underwear designers play on. There is, in fact, a whole arena of underwear designed for fetishistic clients. Lingerie represents undressing and the materials can be associated with flesh or pubic hair.

Fetishism tends to focus on materials. As far as underwear is concerned, recurring materials are silk and nylon, but after these two fabrics became outdated, designers began to use leather, metal and above all latex. Leather and metal have been used for a long time, as shown in the photographs of Yva Richard, but it is latex that has considerable appeal today. In the 1920s, Yva Richard appeared in a whole series of photographs in which she posed as a dominatrix. She usually modeled a corset similar to those of the second half of the 19th century, or all-in-ones in silky, smooth and shiny materials or leather. Leather was the fetishist’s material of choice for a long time, and still is for some. The Atomage label in particular, and its creative director John Sutcliffe, produce leather outfits. Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have also been metal outfits aimed at the sado-masochistic market. Let us not forget that the term sadism was invented by Richard Von Krafft-Ebing in reference to the marquis of Sade and means sexual behaviour where orgasm can only be reached by making one’s partner suffer. The term masochism was also invented by Richard Von Krafft-Ebing as a reference to the name of Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch and defines a kind of sexual perversion in which a person can only achieve pleasure by subjugating himself to suffering and physical servitude81. The underwear we can see on postcards from the period 1900-1930 are real suits of armour made of hammered metal adorned by chains. The cards depict what was known as “belles enchaînées” (“beautiful ladies in chains”), showing the submission of prostitutes and the domination of the male – the photos were in fact of women who worked in brothels, and they were to be looked at while the client was waiting. This fascination with metal outfits has existed since the Belle Epoque, a period when jewellers showed their inventive talents by creating bras, suspender belts and certain chastity belts in fine metals covered in precious stones or paste. The most famous piece was a Belle Otéro suspender belt manufactured by the house of Boucheron during the time of Napoleon III. During the “Années Folles”, metal was worked into points and was more cut-out and aggressive. Today, people’s taste for metal is diminishing in favour of details such as chains or covered pieces such as the Michel Coulon’s design in the 1990s. His designs turned a woman into a surrealist Japanese manga character. Latex is actually the most fashionable material in this area. It makes the body seem firm in a way that no other material can. All types of underwear exist in a latex version today, from panties to all-in-one outfits. Demask label (Amsterdam) makes vinyl corsets and Sealware and Ectomorph are also latex specialists.

As for colours, the fetishist world is dominated by black. This color is associated with sin and at the same times flatters a woman’s body. Black underwear and fetishists owe a great deal of their reputation to Betty Page who was the symbol of black lingerie and “soft-core” sado-masochism in the United States of America in the 1950s. Her career lasted from 1948 to 1957, and she was photographed mainly by Irving Claw, completely dressed in black and in rather provocative poses. It was rare for other colours to be used.

In magazines and on postcards for specialist stores there are certain recurrent garments. In fact, fetishists are not attracted by all underwear (fetishist lingerie is only one part of this phenomenon): they have their favourites.

Of course there is the corset. In this context, and in opposition to its erotic allure, the corset is considered as an instrument of physical and sexual oppression linked to the practice of tightening. The garment is loved by lacing fetishists but, according to Valérie Steele, it has never been a mass fetishist object and only a small number of corset-makers supply the fetishist market. Their corsets are extremely narrow and there are models for both men and women. Corset fetishism also dates from the 19th century, the era when they were common. Certain historians write that 19th century women who laced their corsets very tightly were fetishists as they took pleasure in this. This could be a misinterpretation of fetishists’ letters which appeared in English Woman’s Domestic Magazine (EDM) between 1867 and 1874 concerning the corset. The letters could indeed be false and the truth of their content dubious. For today’s fetishists, corsets mean that the body is disciplined and can be controlled so as to increase sexual pleasure. There is fetishism for “old-fashioned” objects, of which the corset is one, but this practice is merely anecdotal. In the 1930s the corset-maker Mrs Kayne, who specialised in “old-style” slimming corsets for men and women also sold silk and satin underwear and briefs, pajamas and even false breasts made of latex. The corset gradually broke out of fetishist circles to gain mass appeal. Today, corsets designed by Axford or BR Création are available to everyone. Fetishism has become an international phenomenon and companies such as Sealwear, Atomage, Ectomorph and Axford share the market. The corset craze outside the fetishists market is partly due to the interest fashion designers have shown in them over the last thirty years.

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