Oh bondage, up yours! From H&M to S&M on the winter runways

Did I, um, say conservative? I believe I did last week, right around the time of Gucci's bon chic bon genre collection - following as it did hot on the heels of Marc Jacobs' nattily-dressed laydees in New York. By Friday afternoon however, a far darker theme had reared its head and before we get to the Paris shows, I thought it was worth a few words.

Now it's not like 'tough chic' or 'pretty punk' is brand new.

The corset and bustier trend has been around for seasons and there was a hard edge to the punk-studded Giles Deacon and D&G shows of spring/summer 2007.

Even Burberry Prorsum showed a silver stud-encrusted silk cocktail series for summer - one dress from which series recently made the front cover of both British Tatler and Harpers Bazaar in the same month.

Flying out of Malpensa airport on Saturday, it was hard to miss D&G's new spring ad campaign with its punked-up disco slappers in chainmail microdresses and spiked stilettos. Although sexually-charged, it was however a far cry from current Dolce e Gabbana signature line ads - which have attracted much flack. Last week the company announced it would withdraw one image from the Spanish market after women's groups complained that it glorified violence against women. It featured a woman being pinned to the ground by one man, while other men look on. Last month, the winter campaign of their mens line, which featured men brandishing knives and guns, was banned in Britain.

Which brings us to the Dolce e Gabbana FW0708 show on Thursday afternoon: a suite of masked, whip-toting, silver chastity belt-wearing dominatrixes in gravity-defying silver stiletto pumps. Oh and some clothes, such as some sharp tuxedo pantsuits, leopard print PVC bubble skirts, black silicone corset dresses, studded silver bustier and shell dresses and some very pretty crystal- and silk flower-embellished, silk tulle evening dresses that seemed at counterpoint to the otherwise 'hardcore' theme.

Later that evening the designers presented an exhibition called "Secret Ceremony": a series of erotic images of themselves in various stages of undress taken by Steven Klein - supposedly the shots considered too risque for US glossy W, which originally commissioned the series.

On Friday afternoon, DSquared gave an angsty presentation that had many buzzing well into the evening.

Staged against a dungeon-like backdrop featuring a giant caged dome hung with moaning 'inmates' - but in fact a replica of the mis en scene of their recent menswear show - models stormed out in black leather breastplates, black skin-tight leather jeans, black 'urban' combat jackets/gilets over black microshorts, and all teamed with absurdly-high pink platform tart shoes, leather horse blinkers - with one model brandishing a black baseball bat.

At Iceberg, there were black, zippered, strappy bondage dresses and black bomber jackets with bondage straps.

That morning, even the normally refined Missoni had a touch of the dominatrix about it via some bizarre, multi-strap corset belts and a series of evening dresses that featured embellished, self-titled "bondage scarves".

And while Gianfranco Ferre showed some very architectonic kimono coats and metallic shift dresses, my money was on his raunchy, skinny, black leather combats with zippered pockets.

But is it bondage, punk, S&M, haute grunge urban or simply Lara Croft?

It's dark, that's for sure. He didn't tie his models up however with his slick, all-black collection shown on day two of the season in New York, Sydney's own Josh Goot seems to be on the money once again.

By convenient coincidence, at my first Paris show this afternoon - Rick Owens - I bumped into the director of the Museum at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, fashion historian and curator Valerie Steele. Steele might not have seen the shows first-hand in Milan but she is the author of the 1995 book Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power. I figured she would have an interesting take on things.

Here's what she said:

What do you think about this emerging bondage/S&M theme at the Milan shows?
Valerie Steele: It seems to me that many S&M things in fashion just act as a kind of shortcut or signal for 'This is ultra-sexy fashion'. It's not even perverse anymore. It's very visual and theatrical and conveys easily to the public that it's about sex. Most things like body exposure don't - that sort of ho-hum, underwear-as-outerwear doesn't but if you do really flagrant S&M references then Jo Average will go 'Oh yes right, that means it's sexy and hot'. I remember when, after Versace had done all those things back in the early 90s that were sexy and sort of fetish-y [a case in point, Liz Hurley's famous safety pin dress], I talked to real fetishists and I said, 'So, what did you think of Versace?' and they said, 'We hate it - because now you can't tell if someone's really into it or if they're just making a fashion statement'. And I think at this point it has spread so rapidly into just being vernacular for 'This means sexy'.

The wowsers are saying its misogynistic. But terms such as 'dominatrix' don't really gel with the idea of submission, surely?
That was always the argument, about Versace and everyone else: was it chic or was it cruel? Was it putting the woman in a dominatrix position of power or making her act out a male fantasy of being the sexy woman of power?

Dolce and Gabbana have just had to pull one ad campaign in Spain after complaints.
The thing is of course, most dominatrixes are paid to do that for a male sexual fantasy...

A straight male sexual fantasy. It seems to be predominantly gay male designers who are coming up with these S&M references.
Yes but you know, the S&M is so theatrical it's not really about one gender versus another gender. It's just about actors playing on positions of power versus positions of submission. But it's all play acting anyway.

Do you think perhaps Dita Von Teese and the mainstreaming of burlesque that has been happening recently may have anything to do with it?
Oh I think it's part of the same phenomenon, sure. Theatrical sex is perfect for fashion because fashion is a kind of visual shorthand and you're not really going to be showing people engaging in sexual acts. You take your clothes off for that, usually. But with these kinds of things, you can be a kind of visual sartorial semaphor that says, 'This is about sex, this is about sex'. It's role-playing.

Why at this particular moment?
I think it's just a cycle. I think it comes back every couple of years. Like all of that corsetry. Every couple of years.


In fact, when you looked back, you realised that the whole bondage theme had really kicked off as far back as Monday's Burberry Prorsum collection.

Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey [pictured above with models Lily Donaldson, Freja Beha Erichsen and Sasha Pivovarova backstage] insisted at the time that it was all about armour and 'protection'.

Inspired by Burberry's 150 year-old jousting knight logo, Bailey reinvented the iconic Burberry trench into a series of artfully-constructed coats fashioned from everything from nappa leather to shaved mink, quilted python and tapestry jacquards.

Boasting studs, exposed brass zippers, armour-like shoulder guards - and layered over delicate, ruched silk slip dresses and skirts - the entire collection had a very medieval feel. The accessories were particularly noteworthy. Long leather gloves, which have become a recurring motif throughout this season [in part possibly to do with all the short sleeves on the coats and dresses] with quilted, gauntlet-like cuffs; dominatrix-style, shiny, black over-the-knee boots; foot-wide buckled black leather corset belts and handbags with punk hardware.

One bag in particular seems a quantum leap from Burberry's genteel English heritage: a large tote that is completely covered in silver studs and festooned with a series of buckled black leather bondage straps.

After the show I spoke with Bailey and had meant to post the interview immediately. Due to an internet issue in my hotel that night however, it became stuck on my backburner all week. We started off talking about bondage and then segued into a few other subjects. Here's the Q&A in full - I figured some may be interested in what else Bailey has to say.

We saw some 'tough chic' coming through in your summer collection with the silver-studded eveningwear, now you're moving even more hardcore. What do you think that says about fashion at the moment?
Christopher Bailey: In terms of fashion, I don't know. Certainly in terms of Burberry, we've just celebrated our 150th anniversary and I just wanted to move her forward.

By taking her back to the Dark Ages?
By making her a little tougher and by this idea of protection and kind of that security and kind of being almost camouflaged and looked after. And I think that was really the idea of this. And I think generally in fashion, to answer your question, there is a feeling of looking at modernity in a different way. And I think that harder edge is something that...

So like, protection on the outside?
Yeah I think we do. And I think we should never lose the romance.

Well Joan of Arc was romantic.
Absolutely and I think that there can be sex and some romance even with protection. And I think that's what I was exploring with this collection.

Could you just run through some of the fabrics?
A lot of leather, in every kind of form. I did it quilted and ruched and stitched and patterned, bonded... I did a lot of fur which was shaved, it was mink. And I did a lot of silk nylon outerwear. I did a lot of silk in both this and almost a lingerie satin.

What was that chain mail material - the trench at the end?
Basically they were all hand-stitched metal grommets that we just kind of made almost like armour. We did it also on the sleeves of the cashmere sweater.

Obviously you're a gun for hire there, and a very successful gun for hire, but does anyone ever freak when you say, 'Hey, this is my vision for Burberry for next season: S&M'?
No, you know, it doesn't really work like that. I work very very closely with Angela [Ahrendts], our ceo, and I have a vision for the aesthetics of the company. Angela has an amazing business point of view and vision and we work together. It's a collaborative thing. Angela would never say, 'Oh you should not do this, you should not do that'. Design isn't like that.

She had no problem when you told her you wanted to put bondage straps on one of the bags?
We weren't really looking at them as bondage straps, we were looking at them...

That's what they look like.
Everybody translates it in the way that they see it.

Are you going to actually produce those fabulous puss-in-boots boots and the long gloves, or were they just a styling thing?
Absolutely, yeah.

Just on the fashion brain drain from London. Why is it that all the great British designers ultimately have to leave?
I don't think they leave. Again, I see fashion in a different way. I don't see it that it has to be tied down to one city. I have my whole design creative team in London. We have our head offices in London, we do a lot of our manufacturing in the UK. And I think we have the most incredible design schools in the UK. But fashion is global. We have a lot of young talent, a lot of young design talent in the UK. And because it's a global design business I think we need everybody to have a global experience. I don't believe in this insular thing of just because you're trained in London, you have to stay in London.

Obviously some designers are saying no to big design jobs within large companies. What are you doing with Burberry that you couldn't do with your own label?
I really don't have any interest right now in creating my own label. I love to be saturated within the brand of Burberry. For me it's very, very inspiring. It's one of the great British luxury brands within the world. So for me it's an honour to work within a company like that. I don't know, I guess I'm not turned on by the idea of having my name out there. I'm the spokesperson for Burberry and I have the design vision and the aesthetic vision. And I'm certainly an integral part to this huge company. But it's not about me, it's not about Christopher Bailey. It's about Burberry and it's about me retranslating Burberry. And I always kind of talk about, you know, we've been around for 150 years and I'm this tiny little dot in that 150 years.

That reminds me of what Francisco Costa said after the Calvin Klein show in New York, when I asked why he doesn't do more there. He replied, 'I'm not a power freak'. Some say that when you worked at Gucci you used to design all the womens clothes for Tom Ford. Did you?
Did I design all the clothes? No I didn't design all the clothes. I designed a lot of them, of course.

Last week Julien Macdonald told the anti-fur lobby to piss off.
Oh did he? OK, that was very diplomatic.

I thought it was something of a progression from his previous 'no comment' on the subject. Do you have any sentiments to express to the anti-fur lobby?
You know again, for me, it's always about balance. I don't think it's about [being] radical and dictatorship. Everybody has a point of view. I don't believe in aggressive behaviour and that I really deplore. And really do not agree that that kind of a situation should happen within any kind of presentation or within any retail store.

Designers can show fur, but it doesn't it really come down to the fact that consumers want to buy fur?
The consumer will tell us when they believe that they shouldn't. And for me, fur is a part of our history, it's a part of Burberry's culture. And again, I don't react to radical statements and aggression.

Telling them to piss off was fairly radical though.
Oh well you know, Julien is Julien, so good for him.

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