Ayra Starr, Nigerian recording artist, flew to one of our featured Capitals of Kink to attend Paris Fashion Week’s Balmain show, for which she wore this very cute, retro-inspired Balmain latex ensemble

CAPITALS OF KINK: FETISH STYLE ON DISPLAY IN PARIS AND LONDON

Normally at this time of year, we expect to examine the state of celebrity fetish fashion as represented by two high profile events taking place between late February and early March in two European capitals of kink. These events being Paris Fashion Week (February 26 – March 5) and London’s Brit Awards (March 2). And indeed, we will be doing just that below.

But first, we feel a shout-out is deserved this season for an earlier event in the French capital, namely Paris Couture Week. Paris Fashion Week’s separate, smaller haut couture showcase in late January (22-25) wouldn’t normally offer that much of interest to fetish fashion spotters. But this year provided an eye-catching exception thanks to couture house Schiaparelli’s creative director Daniel Roseberry.

Whether these two very shiny outfits in Schiaparelli’s Paris Couture Week show really featured latex, as Tatler thought, or PVC (which looks more likely to us), they certainly were eye-catching! (Photos: Estrop)

Roseberry kicked of Paris Couture Week with what Tatler described as “a collection of extra-terrestrial elegance dubbed ‘Schiaparalien’”. And among the garments were a couple of stunning creations in black material so shiny and stiff that it might actually have been PVC. Tatler’s reporter described it as latex, but as we know, distinguishing latex from PVC and leather is a skill that sometimes evades fashion writers — and in this case, one really could be forgiven for not being 100 percent sure!

But it was left to Fashion Network’s coverage of Avellano’s AW 24 Ready-to-Wear show at Paris Fashion Week to commit the biggest reporting faux pas, by repeatedly referring to Avellano’s latex creations by such category error descriptions as “signature PVC looks”, “full PVC looks” and “full vinyl” — with latex mentioned only in passing!

Designer Arthur Avellano – seen above centre with guest runway model Noah Cyrus at his Paris Fashion Week show – unleashed his latest technical developments, including astrakan-textured latex, with a range of skintight and loose-fit designs for women and men (photos: from full Avellano FW24 album here)

You could understand someone hedging their bets by adding the word ’looks’ a couple of times if they weren’t sure whether Avellano’s designs actually were PVC or only looked like PVC. But how could there be any doubt about this designer’s choice of materials after his incredible impact on Paris last year alone, both on and off the catwalk? How any fashion hack could have failed to grasp by now that Arthur Avellano is hailed by the cognoscenti for single-handedly increasing the fashionista appeal of latex with his infernal secret processes and distinctive styling is beyond us!

The Paris-based designer has released an extensive set of pictures of his AW2024 collection. Some of our favourites, shown here, indicate the addition of murky green to his colour palate, and take his earlier embrace of textured finishes in what we can only describe as “exciting new directions”. Astrakan-textured latex, anybody?

Many of the new Avellano styles were shown in muted green or black latex with optional texturing, the women’s jackets matched simply with opaque tights (photos: Avellano)

He has also created lot of new loose-fit and/or oversized styles that, combined with his penchant for (as now admitted in a Financial Times interview) employing a “chlorination-like” treatment, can only increase the celebrity appeal of his designs. He has surely sewn up the market (in some cases literally) among people who like the look and feel of latex but don’t want the hassle (or fun, as we would call it) of all that lubing and the other rituals that generally go along with wearing and caring for conventional latex garments!

While Avellano’s Paris show was a very strong offering, it was not on this occasion accompanied by the same amount of additional off catwalk/on red carpet exposure enjoyed by his brand last year. But this might be simply because celebs who turned up in his designs for Paris Fashion Week last year were there to cheer him on and ensure he got the attention he deserved, and felt that job had now been done. Which was probably right.

Avellano’s Jackets and coats for men included long and short puffer styles, textures and the striking white ankle-length greatcoat shown above (photos: Avellano)

As far as we can tell, outside Avellano’s show, latex was not being worn as much in Paris this time by those merely attending Fashion Week’s various events. However, an honourable mention must go to Nigerian recording artiste Ayra Starr. She turned up at the Balmain show in Paris wearing a coquettish Balmain black latex ensemble with a strong retro influence, its conical bra top and high-waisted, flounced miniskirt really only lacking the little white apron needed to complete a classic French maid look!

Swapping capitals of kink and crossing over to London for the Brit Awards on March 2, we couldn’t help but observe that category errors by mainstream fashion spotters were not limited to reports from Paris Fashion Week. Performers and their stylists at the Brits also managed to fool some of the pundits at least some of the time.

in London, the second of our featured capitals of kink, Dua Lipa wore this leather shorts-based ensemble for the big song and dance extravaganza that opened the Brits show

Take Dua Lipa for example. If you watched the start of the Brits on TV, you could hardly have failed to notice that the big opening number featured Dua Lipa and dancers very obviously clad in black leather. Other images from backstage and around the event also showed the singer in various leather ensembles.

And yet, when she later appeared in that fabulous Versace corseted full-length black leather gown, the images of it that subsequently appeared in online reports (where you can clearly see the dress is leather) described it, with only one exception we spotted, as “latex”.

Dua Lipa also wore this Versace corseted black leather gown at the Brits. It’s clearly leather, yet fashion spotters thought it was latex

But perhaps this seemed a reasonable guess at the time. Because this Versace style does look quite a bit like some of the latex gowns previously worn at other events of this kind by various celebs. And of course there’s absolutely no irony in leather being mistaken for latex when so often, in fashion commentary, it has been the other way around!

But did any of the outfits on display at the Brits trouble our own normally finely-honed latex-spotting talents? Well, keep this to yourselves, but even we were almost fooled by multi-award-winning singer Raye’s crystal-adorned clingy white gown. We knew she had previously chosen latex for performances, but under the TV lighting, we just couldn’t make up our minds whether this one was the ‘real thing’ or not! The bejewelled look was different for sure, and the white fabric, with its seemingly low-sheen finish, looked like it might actually be (gulp!) pleather.

Raye, who picked up six of the seven awards she was nominated for at the Brits, nearly fooled us with this Swarovski crystal-sprinkled white latex gown, a custom Tulip style from Atsuko Kudo

What a relief then to discover, eventually, that it was indeed latex — an Atsuko Kudo custom Tulip gown with straps and Swarovski crystal adornment. How great that Raye — who seems like a really nice, genuine person as well as a massive musical talent (winning a record-breaking six Brit Awards on the night) — chose a British latex designer for her big performance!