Peter Ashworth’s website just went through the first overhaul it’s had in years. It’s great to see the English photographer out and about, putting up new images on a site that looks like it’s easy to update. Above are two classic images that had a huge influence on me when I first began to do studio photography. The image of performer Lucifire with a gauze “veil” over her eyes pinned to her face by hypodermic needles will always remain, in my mind, one of the greatest fetish portraits ever taken. The image on the right, with its high contrast and clear space, was the first to show me a kind of abstracting isolation that I find crucial in producing a strong fetish image.
Below are two new works by Peter Ashwroth from a series called in excelsis. The models are Ulorin Vex and Viktorya, wearing the recognizable hairstyles of Robert Masciave. There’s a stark economy going on in his Ashworth’s older work with alt models that’s been replaced by high glam, and while I definitely enjoy these new images, I also hope to see more of the reductive, slightly-raw imagery that made such an impression on me in the past.
“The gentleman who has the pleasure of tying the final bow owns you.”
- Mr. Pearl, interview
What strikes me about fetish legend/corsetier Mr. Pearl’s images is how much he looks like a true English gentleman - and how, magically, his 18-inch corseted waist works to enhance that image, the opposite of what one might expect it to do.
Mr. Pearl grew up in South Africa and moved to London at the earliest chance after completing his military service. He spent three years in New York in the early 90s, where he did his most intimate published interview, of which there are few. Already a renowned tightlacer by this time, Pearl treated corsetry with such reverence that he insisted on precision in every aspect of his involvement with it; when his New York interviewer described him as a corsetier, he interrupted. “Forgive me,” he said. “I am a designer who employs the corset and lacings into his designs. I am not a corsetier - I have not attained that specialized knowledge. There are only about five left in the whole world now, who possess that art. I hope one day to be amongst them.”
Fast-forward to the 2000s: Mr. Pearl is a successful corsetier, commissioned by Mugler, Lacroix, Galliano and Gaultier when they need a master to produce their corset designs for the runway. Clients include Dita, Kylie Minogue and Jerry Hall. He lives in Paris, and works out an atelier behind the Notre Dame.
Despite his success, Pearl doesn’t have a flashy website. There’s no web store to offer plastic-boned corsets that bear only his name, no MySpace page and no blog. He’s known for his aversion to modern technology, and his only web interview was handwritten and transmitted by fax.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw these images promoting Janet Jackson’s new album, Discipline. Whether it’s the strange photography, the retouching or the black and white, she looks damn hot.
I’m sure someone out there thinks Janet is exploiting the fetish scene for her newest album’s campaign, but I think it’s safe to say at this point that Miss Jackson is a bona fide superfreak. Please note the expression as she drips transparent goo, grips a riding crop and dons skin-tight latex. That is a face that don’t lie.
Grey pearlescent flesh winds falls across warm skin. Secrets are exchanged.
Photographer William Springfield and dedicated model Sarah showcase exquisite lines and textures of an octopus, while exploring the harsh realities of love between woman and cephalopod. Love consumes, sometimes.
Nom.
Admittedly, I’d rather see a model interact with a virile creature, not mere sushi - and I don’t mean in the hentai sense. Though these images are successful in making me hungry!
Everything that designer Freyagushi makes is a bit kinderwhore, a bit medical, and all pink. Many alt designers today try to present themselves as something more than what they actually are, embarrassing themselves in the process by doing things like erroneously adding the word “Couture” to the end of their business name. There’s no effort on Freyagushi’s part to look professional at all; she’s just like, “come into my zany world!” The result is honestly fun.
The designer is also the model in some of the pictures above (that’s her with the pink circuitry tattoo!). For her next trick she’s doing the Animal Hospital Fashion Show at the Torture Garden.
WEST YORKSHIRE, England - Tasha wears a collar with a leash that her fiance Dani holds when they are out walking together. For this reason, a bus driver has denied them service, saying “no dogs allowed” - and allegedly pushed them off the bus.
It’s ironic that same land that gave us Siouxsie and Fat Bob is now one of the most dangerous, discriminatory European places for goths to inhabit. Last year, 20-year-old goth girl Sophie Lancaster was beaten to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, wearing the wrong clothes. A goth guy collecting charity while dressed as Nosferatu was violently beaten by a group of up to seven, his prosthetic ears ripped off. These attacks, perpetuated by yobs and/or chavs, are one thing, but this kind of treatment by a public servant is something else entirely.
The story was covered by The Daily Mail, England’s more conservative, right-wing newspaper. Some of the reader comments are rather hilarious. Here are my top 3 favorites, for various reasons:
He looks like a work-shy scrounger to me, get a job and pay your way.
- Harry Basset, Whitby
Never mind walking the dog - with a figure like Tasha’s she’ll soon be on the catwalk.
- Sarah, Belgium
If he was a gentleman goth, he would loan her his coat.
- John, United Kingdom
Though I’m 100% with them, the couple gets points taken off for giving stupid quotes to the media. Don’t say “I am a pet” to a reporter for a mainstream news outlet. Just don’t. (Thanks, Catwalk Ghost!)
Have you ever been filled with the burning desire to see your favourite 80’s rocker step out of a massive, glowing vag and use his tongue to make sweet love to another man’s eyeball?
I knew it. You people disgust me.
I give to you the 1993 tour-de-force of homo-erotic gluttony that is Seth et Holth. Set to the backdrop of some actually rather wicked industrial rock, the 43 minutes of beautiful confusion that follows is staged by one Hide (X-Japan) and Tusk (Zi:Kill) as Angels who communicate with their blood, struggling after being cast out of heaven and eventually executed by earthlings. It’s kinda like a less pretentious Cremaster Cycle done in the style of a New Wave music video but with cooler-looking dudes.
Don’t make too much of an effort to ‘get’ this movie — seriously, it would make David Lynch cry — as it presents itself to be more of a visual and musical experiment. It’s worth a look as an unusual piece of rock nostalgia alone.
Dolls have long been fetishised and it’s to be expected, really - perfect skin, stylized features, limitless hair possibilities and endless wardrobe options are all enticing. In alt modeling the idea of the living doll is prevalent, in and out of Japan the Elegant Gothic Lolita style has provided much doll-like fashion, and of course in folklore living dolls exist as well. But now you might be asking yourself - damn it, what about mannequins! Aside from that 80s movie, what’s out there?
Behold, the Living Dollhouse. Not for the weak of constitution, this Pandora’s box of an internet archive has all you ever dreamed of. Mannequin fiction, mannequin photos, mannequin art - it’s all there just for you. Perhaps you, now a bit shaken, are wondering how I came across such a site. Like the Dollhouse owners, I like mannequins. I currently own four, having recently rid myself of four others due to overcrowding, and was innocently hoping to find some costuming inspiration. But, as is the way of the Web, the Living Dollhouse is what I got instead. Now I feel dirty and you will too.
Artist Soomi Park from Seoul has created a set of LED eyelashes that light up in the dark. In an interview with We Make Money Not Art, Park describes the motivation behind her design:
I tried to project Korean’s obsession to big eyes, and how this fetishism is interpreted into excessive plastic surgery done on the eyes among Korean women. I really thought the obsession with big eyes can be represented through media design, because both yearning for bigger eyes and projecting the look through lights can be done by distorting the representation and creating new images. The LED Eyelashes have a mercury sensor that controls the light on the face. When wearing the LED eyelashes, you look embellished as if you were wearing a piece of fashion jewelry.
Politicized wearable art that invokes cybernetic technology? Marry me! In truth, you had me at “light-up lashes.” Read the article for more about the eyelashes and about Park’s compelling Digital Veil projet. The article mistakenly refers to Soomi as a boy, but she corrects the misconception in the comments. The interview is excellent nonetheless.
