Description

Fashion historian Valerie Steele explores the relationship between clothing, erotic attraction, gender identity and social power. Rather than treating fetishism as an isolated sexual practice, she examines how fetish imagery has influenced designers, advertising, nightlife and popular culture.

Individual chapters examine corsets, high heels, boots, underwear, fur, satin, rubber, leather, tattoos, piercing and fantasy uniforms. The book also discusses how styles once associated with underground communities became familiar sights on fashion runways and in commercial photography.

Steele combines fashion history with psychology, sexology, feminist debate and interviews with people involved in fetish culture. Her central argument is that clothing can express fantasy, transformation, authority, submission and rebellion not merely cover the body.