Check out the May issue of the UK based contemporary art magazine Frieze. (Sorry, we’re a month behind with UK mag shipments in the US.) Gracing the cover is a still of a mysterious and beautiful hooded woman from one of the films of Charles Atlas.  He is known for featuring arty and underground fabulous people like Leigh Bowery and Merce Cunningham in his films. Great cover!

Good thing for us, they seem to be fetish-friendly. Recently, there’s been an upsurge of upstart and established latex designers starting shop pages on the site. I’ve compiled a list of pretty much all the latex designers I’ve found plus extra non-latex designers that may be of interest to you.

I hope more latex designers will jump on the Etsy bandwagon. We definitely need another alternative to fleabay. The best thing about shopping on Etsy: no more having to drudge through sixty pages of moldy molded gear and PVC or ‘wet look’ spandex crap when browsing.

The Latex/Rubber Etsy Shop List:

Am Statik (UK – Swindon)

Collective CHAOS (USA)

Dark Secrets Latex (UK – N.E. England)

Essential Latex (Copenhagen)*

Fierce Couture (USA – Los Angeles)

Hedony Design (France – Paris)

Hello Dolly Latex (UK – Sheffield)

HH Fashions

HMS Latex (France – Paris)*

Jacqueline Marie Couture (USA – NYC)

Kaori’s Latex Dreams (UK – London)*

Kriszta Latex Wardrobe (Hungary)

Likorish Latex (UK)

Lust Designs (USA – San Diego)*

Naucler Design (Sweden)

Nimue’s Latex Fashions (USA – CA)

Ooh La Latex (UK – London)*

Peccatus (UK – London)

Spiral Stitching (USA)

Vaunt Designs (USA – Philly)

Venus Prototype (USA – Los Angeles)

Violaceous Latex (UK – Yorkshire)

Westward Bound (UK)

ZxLatex (UK)

Non-latex + miscellaneous shops of interest:

Giddyspinster (USA)

Joias Organicas (Brazil)

Metamorph

Plastik Wrap (Canada – Toronto)

*Personal recommendations are marked with an asterisk.

Some shops were purposely not included in this list because  there was no information listed in the profile and/or shop policies page or the garment photos looked like they were taken with a cell phone camera.

Barbara Nitke

The photograph of the rubber-clad woman above comes from one of her current portfolios. Visit Barbara’s blog for some wonderful behind the scenes photos and for photoshoot credits.

If you’ll be in the NYC area this May, be sure to check out her new gallery show titled Smooth Hotel at Gansevoort 69 in the Meatpacking District which features “provocative photographs of chic people misbehaving in anonymous hotel settings.” Go here for further info.

Kenneth was inspired by Marlon Brando’s iconic boots in the movie The Wild One. The advert slogan for these boots is “Save a Hide…Wear a Rubber (Boot).” On a side note, these would be great RubberInPublic wear.

Also in the news: the legendary latex designer Kim Westreturns! The website’s fabulous, and there’s also a blog and video gallery. The zebra pencil skirt and matching oversized tote bag is truly a power combo. I just wish there were more garment views in the shop. Thanks to Garlor for originally posting Kim’s return on the IAR.

The photograph has such a casual and innocent elegance  that I couldn’t resist sharing it with you.  Black rubber bathed in golden sunlight and a simple outdoor setting provide a  different feel than the usual latex fashion studio work. Plus the model, YKat, is stunningly gorgeous. Eric says the following on the shoot and his photography:

This shot was taken in the Sunset District of San Francisco before we went to Mike West’s Rope::Burn show.  The dress is from Syren and YKat is currently doing some fitting work for one of their designers.
YKat started modeling for me about five months ago. She is also a photographer and shoots both digital and film. I am strictly a film user. I like the look of film as well as the process. I shoot medium and large format film almost exclusively. I have many cameras: pinhole, twin lens reflex, field, rangefinder, plastic cam, and panoramic. I also collect expired film. My most recent find was 12 boxes of Tri-X Pan that expired in 1981. I have also got some color negative and instant film with extreme color shifts. I’ve only shot a few packs of Fuji instant peel film (FP-100C45 and FP-100B45). I miss the negative option of Polaroid, but find the Fuji to have great color and tonal range.

View more from the set here.

Here’s a vintage find for all you lovers of rubber mackintoshes, ladies, ladies wearing rubber mackintoshes…you get the idea! It’s a small catalogue called Girl Mack from the UK. No date is listed anywhere, but my guess is circa 1970 something. If you know any info about the company or have purchased anything from them, please post something in the comments section.

Enjoy! Keep your eyes peeled for more vintage rubber catalogs and mags.

shiny.

Betty LaBamba here, bearing gifts in the guise of fashion mag tear sheets from various points throughout the 90′s.  Unfortunately, there are no exact dates on any of them, or any clue from which magazine they came from on most of them.

First row from left: a lucky dog; an unspecified long sleeved latex dress; lime green latex from Anna Sui.

Second row from left: a positive article on the influence of rubber fetishism from British[?] Vogue featuring Ectomorph; an article suffering from too much snarky fashionspeak from Sky Magazine about vanillas trying to “get into” rubber; a genius ad for Persil dish detergent. Enjoy! 

Special thanks goes out to Garlor for mailing me these goodies and other latex ephemera all the way from across the Atlantic, and mucho thanks to 3xL for inviting me to contribute to this site.