I'm not a great lover of fetish fashion as it has developed within the BDSM community: it's a little too black, too shiny, and too tied to old-fashioned notions of sex and power for my tastes. And, as so often amongst those who pride themselves on being queer and looking extraordinary, there's a surprising conformism and rubbery-sameness amongst the kinky crowd. This became clear after a visit to Torture Garden (TG), the world's leading fetish venue.
The owners and founders of TG, Messrs Pelling & Wood, like to portray it as an achieved utopia wherein people are free to play, perform, and experiment with practices that challenge norms of social and sexual identity - which they are, just so long as they adhere to the club's strict dress code: No jeans! No trainers! No natural fabrics!
Of course, it's not street wear or casual clothing that really threatens the TG aesthetic. Rather, it's the kind of inexpensive fancy dress worn by fun-loving girls on a hen-night. Pelling & Wood understand how their up-market fetish business risks being made ludicrous by a bawdy counter-aesthetic that delights in exaggerated bad taste and self-mockery. Thus, whilst they insist that TG's dress code strives to avoid narrow limitations and is primarily in place to encourage "individual imagination and diversity", they nevertheless concede that it ultimately serves to protect the club's status as "edgy and avant-garde".
As good capitalists, Pelling & Wood might want to see their business expand and sell as many pairs of latex knickers to as many people as possible, but they also need to protect their brand image. And so they bemoan the fact - without the slightest hint of irony - that as the fetish scene becomes more mainstream "there has been a commercial element creeping into sections of the crowd".
Continuing, in a paragraph that betrays the full extent of their snobbery and moral allegiance to the principle of the Real, they declare:
"This looks shit and makes TG look shit ... If you have the bad taste to wear ... cheap and cheesy fancy dress please go somewhere else, we don't want you at TG! ... We want the diversity and the fun, but we want authentic costumes that are real ... not cheap fancy dress copies."
www.torturegarden.com
They further warn that Dress Code Staff will ensure that everyone inside TG is dressed "appropriately at all times". What this means is forget about wearing whatever might turn you on and just make sure your outfit conforms to the aesthetic and commercial ideal of the owners - or watch out for the fashion police!
Clearly, Pelling & Wood need to lighten up a little: they should, if you like, smile and say cheese. For as long as they remain faithful to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, TG will remain a haven of art school pretension rather than superficial delight.
