I have always taken a 'never say never' approach towards fashion only because it is such a fickle world and trends will come around and go around in peaks and troughs. Therefore, when in the 90's, PVC trousers was the height of cool in warehouse raves and I swore they were the ugliest, most disgusting things I had ever seen, I suppose that had to come around and bite me in the ass. When I saw these pictures of fashion sprog, Julia Restoin Roitfeld (daughter of Vogue Paris editor-in-chief, Carine) wearing latex/PVC leggings, I thought to myself 'Well...maybe just maybe....'
Then they started appearing all over the place in editorials. These are a prime example from a supplement that came with the August issue of Vogue UK. They feature very haute, very expensive, high quality rubber leggings and stockings from posh fetish wear labels, Murray & Vern and Atsukokudo. The shinyness of the leggings somehow works really well with the sombre grey and matt fabrics like wool, jersey and instead of looking trashy, it miraculously ends up looking sort of subtly sexy especially when paired with chunky platforms. It appealed to me in a strange way and I was feeling very adventurous indeed....
Of course, I had reservations about shelling out 100 or so pounds on something that could go disastrously wrong and get relegated to the pile of fashion mistakes. So as with most of my fashion curiousity experiments, I thought it better to go on the cheap. I'm not even going to say here where I got them but let's just say someone under the age of 18 should really not go there at all (email me if you're dying to know...). It was a little more complicated then I thought. You need a good dousing of talcum powder both on your legs and the inside of the latex leggings and then you had to bunch them up like you would with stockings to pull them up quite carefully up your legs. The latex leggings came with a spray that's supposed to make them all shiny so then you had to spray that all over it and wipe it down with a cloth. Quite a procedure for a pair of leggings but I went along with it. Providing you don't have any trapped air bubbles, they are actually surprisingly comfortable when on and you can beg to differ but I really loved them!
(Background pics from Elle UK October 2006 editorial 'Urban Assassin' photographed by Ross Kirton)
I tried to pair them with quite casual things to get the right contrast but I found they added interest to rather formal dresses too - an unexpected touch. It's not everyday attire but I think once you get the outfit spot on, they do look pretty cool. Now, I had questions about whether there would be any squelching noises but they were pretty subdued in sound. I think you have the noise problem when you get PVC leggings.
Then when it came to taking them off, that's when it all got a bit sweaty and strange. I rolled them down to slip them off to find my legs very sweaty which then instantly cooled to find them as dry as before. A very strange sensation. For me, that was the only flipside to this piece of "fetish" wear.
Now for sizing. Some people will argue these are skinny person's attire. I disagree as Miss Roitfeld is not skinny skinny and neither am I. If you want them less skin tight (mine bunched a bit around the knees), you could go a size up and get PVC trousers which are more like normal fabric in it's physical properties and could go for a looser-fit.
There was my delving into the world of fetishwear and I'm pretty much satisfied with the results and now have a piece of winterwear that's a little on the darksite. Perhaps I'm a fashion adreneline seeker but sometimes (not all the time!) it pays to step ouside the box.
