The Discipline of Dress: Tracing Fetish Fashion Through Couture Collections
Designer inspo, market shopping guide and functional (but discreet) fetish adornments
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Fetish fashion did not begin on the runway, but it has also never stayed confined to the bedroom.
Long before latex and harnesses became street-style shorthand, designers were borrowing the visual language of kink to challenge how clothing relates to power.
What began as taboo iconography evolved into a design vocabulary that speaks fluently in silhouette, material and intention.
Today, fetish fashion moves easily between couture ateliers, city sidewalks, quiet luxury wardrobes and mass-produced fast-fashion brands, no longer requiring shock value to feel transgressive.
Designer Highlights
How contemporary designers translate fetish aesthetics into fashion narratives.
Schiaparelli — FW25
Tailoring with exaggerated corsetry communicates authority through structure.
GCDS — FW25 RTW
Hosiery motifs are filtered through pop irony and cultural commentary.
The Blonds — FW24
Latex and corsetry appear as spectacle rooted in confidence rather than shame.
Supriya Lele — SS24
Sheer fabrics trace the body with intimacy instead expressed through softness and proximity.
Dilara Findikoglu — FW24
Corsetry and leather reference emotional restraint and gothic inheritance, becoming symbolic armour.
Di Petsa — FW24
Wet-look draping echoes fetish aesthetics through tactility and reverence, celebrating the body as sacred.
Balenciaga — FW22 Couture
Latex-adjacent silhouettes encase the body with severity and anonymity, making the collection a case study in endurance.
Jean Paul Gaultier — FW10
Fishnets and corsetry return as established house language.
Jean Paul Gaultier — FW95 RTW
Harnesses and leather reposition fetish as fashion literacy with power dressing rendered deliberate.
Getting the Look
Modern Build
Jewellery and accessories designed for discreet, functional fetish expression.
Fetish fashion no longer exists to shock the viewer, it operates as a language of elegance and self-awareness prioritizing intention over provocation.
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