Libidex Blog 2024 Pt1: Highlights from months January-June

LIBIDEX BLOG 2024 PT1: HIGHLIGHTS FROM MONTHS JANUARY-JUNE

As we prepare to say goodbye to 2024 and to welcome in 2025, the time has arrived to look back on another full year’s worth of our revived and revamped Blog stories in Libidex Blog 2024 Pt1. So here in the first part of our 2024 retrospective, we’re reminding ourselves (and our loyal readers) of the fetish (and mostly latex) stories that crossed our radar in the first 26 weeks of this year.

For the six months from January to June 2024, we’ve chosen one top story from each month to highlight, along with one of its images. In addition, we mention all the other stories published that same month. And we’re providing individual links direct to each of the 26 Blog items, so you can easily visit the original stories to acquaint or reacquaint yourselves with the full text and all the pictures, should you fancy doing so!

Part 2 of this round-up, covering July–December 2024, will appear as our first blog of 2025 on January 3.

Top image: Dua Lipa featured in March’s Blog about fetish style in Paris and London,  seen at Paris Fashion Week and the Brit Awards. She performed at the Brits in this leather jacket and shorts ensemble, and was later seen there in a full-length Versace leather gown. The latter was widely misdescribed in the media as latex, no doubt because she’d previously been photographed in similar designs that really were latex

January 2024: Global preview of Valentines & other February parties

We couldn’t resist this very rubbery promotional image for Sin City’s Valentine’s Fetish Ball 2024 in our original January preview of February fetish parties, and it seems just as eye-catching now in our Libidex Blog 2024 Pt1 retrospective!

Our January Blog highlight had to be our survey of selected fetish events in February in the UK, EU and North America that were either designated as Valentines events, or were close enough to be treated as Valentines celebrations even if not specifically labelled as such.

The article listed five events in London, four in Europe, four in the USA and two in Canada — one of which was Sin City’s Valentine’s Fetish Ball, which provided us with the luscious pink latex promo image above.

Also published in January’s Blog were: Part 2 of our 2023 Blog Highlights; a look at Torture Garden’s upcoming dates and its own review of 2023; and a survey of Libidex latex coats, jackets and suits.

February 2024: Masuimi Max – fetish scene mourns loss of a legend

One of famous artist Olivia’s many fabulous paintings of Masuimi Max – who, as we reported in February, sadly died in Las Vegas in late January, aged just 45

Our top February story was, sadly, our report on the death, at 45, of legendary fetish model Masuimi Max in Las Vegas on January 25, of a suspected accidental drug overdose. Masuimi had modelled and performed for 25 years and had been a favourite subject for the artist Olivia, one of whose paintings of the model is shown above.

Masuimi had performed in London at early editions of the Skin Two Rubber Ball and Erotica, had modelled for the original British Inner Sanctum latex label, had featured in Skin Two and other fetish magazines and had become a star performer at fetish events on both sides of the Atlantic. She had also modelled for Playboy and other mainstream men’s magazines. Her 17-year marriage to journalist and musician Mörat had ended in late 2023.

Other Blog stories published in February were: a look at latex on screen as seen in new movie Poor Things and BBC drama Domino Day; a look at the bargains still available in our Sister company Liberation-X’s Valentine’s Sale; and a preview of a new event called Expo Erotica that was due to launch at Birmingham’s NEC in September, but was subsequently postponed to 2025.

March 2024: Exhibition celebrates shoe designer Terry De Havilland

Legendary British shoe designer and fetish fan Terry De Havilland would, we revealed, be the focus of two separate exhibits in the upcoming Icons of British Fashion exhibition at Blenheim Palace

Our highlight for March was the news that the late and much-loved British shoe designer Terry De Havilland was about to be celebrated in an exhibition called Icons of British Fashion, to be held at Blenheim Palace, ancestral home of Winston Churchill.

Terry, whose iconic shoe and boot creations straddled the worlds of haut couture, high street fashion and fetish/goth fantasy, would, it transpired, actually be the subject of not one but two exhibits at Blenheim. One, we reported, would be by his widow and business partner Liz; the other by the Newcastle company that acquired the rights to trade under the Terry de Havilland name after his death, and currently sells its Spanish-manufactured footwear range online.

Our other March blog stories were: a round-up of latex fashion and play hoods available from Libidex; a look at the fetish style on display during Paris Fashion Week and the Brit Awards (including Dua Lipa’s leather wardrobe choices at the latter — see image at top of page); a discussion on whether celebrity latex fashion benefits the wider latex scene; and a look at the playful latex styles available from Libidex in the Flirty & Frisky range for women and the Hard and Heavy range for men.

April 2024: Ten hot tips for UK, EU & US fetish events in April & May

Cervena Fox, one of the performers lined up for appearances at Florida Fetish Weekend, one of the ten events recommended in our Spring Fetish Fever selection

Spring fetish fever was the theme of our top choice from April’s tranche of blog stories to feature in this Libidex Blog 2024 Pt1 retrospective. It focused on ten upcoming events taking place in the UK, Europe and the United States between early April and the end of May. Our guide would, we promised, enable you to find the season’s top kinky events in London, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Florida, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Munich, Rome and Zurich.

This one period was possibly the busiest time for major fetish weekends, including as it did the Obscene Fair in Karlsruhe (south-west Germany), Torture Garden’s two Birthday Balls in London, the five-day German Fetish Ball Weekend in Berlin, the four-day Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, and the four-day Florida Fetish Weekend around Fort Lauderdale. The latter event from Fetish Factory provides our featured image of Cervena Fox, who would be performing at two of the FFW parties.

Other April Blog stories were: a look at three relatively new European latex brands (including one from Ukraine); a reminder of the many bargains in the Libidex 25%-off Spring Sale; and a retrospective on British firm Denber Rubber, which closed after 50+ years of trading.

May 2024: London Fetish Film Festival awards & call for submissions

London Fetish Film Festival winner of Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography, film short Norma Place is a spin-off from the forthcoming feature-length Beyond Bizarre documentary about fetish pioneer John Willie

May’s highlight was an update on the progress of 2024’s London Fetish Film Festival. The previous LFFF had been delayed until perilously close to Christmas 2023, which shrunk it to a two-day event, shunting the awards part of the programme into early 2024. May saw the festival hosts reminding film-makers that May 26 was the deadline for earlybird submissions for 2024, so we combined a mention of this with coverage of the delayed awards from the 2023 screenings.

Winners of 2023 LFFF awards included films and individuals from the UK, Europe and beyond, with the specific work providing May’s representative image being Norma Place, a short film spun-off from the forthcoming feature-length John Willie documentary, Beyond Bizarre, by its French makers.

Other May blog stories were: a walk on the wild side with Libidex latex legwear; a round-up of a dozen hot summer events in the UK, EU and North America during June and July; a report on how London’s nightlife crisis has hit ZDR Events and Lucha Britannia; and a cheeky peek at Libidex’s latex underwear for women and men.

June 2023: Neo Ka – the AI imagery of photographer Phoebus Kalista

Catwalk Queen, left, and Feline Kiss, right, are two examples of the AI art of Phoebus Kalista, aka Neo_Ka, featured in our June profile of the artist

Our top June story — the last in this first part of our 2024 Blog retrospective — features the AI fetish imagery of Belgian photographer-turned-AI-artist Phoebus Kalista. Already a 3D enthusiast and one of the early adopters of AI within the fetish community, his initial experiments with Midjourney AI evolved into the ‘hyper-real fetishista art’ that he now creates with Stable Diffusion under the name Neo_Ka.

The primary platform for this work is his Patreon subscription site, but he posts regular teasers for his latest Patreon sets on Facebook (often accompanied by whimsical texts), and also has a Neo_Ka Instagram page. June’s featured image is a pairing of two Neo_Ka creations: Catwalk Queen (in pink latex) and Feline Kiss (in white and black laex).

Other June Blog stories were: Latest appearances of celebrities in fetish looks, including Anya Taylor-Joy; Launch of new UK trade body S Plus Association for sex-positive events; and Libidex’s range of latex dresses for women and men.

Part 2 of this round-up, covering July–December 2024, will appear as our first blog of 2025 on January 3.