Would anybody REALLY wear this

latex clothes

Armed with glossy fashion magazines and a deep appreciation of the ridiculous, I wandered the Countryside Mall last week. My mission: to find if anybody "real" would wear these latest spring styles.
 By and by, I picked out a kindly looking woman and showed her the cover of the latest Cosmopolitan. It featured most of a young woman coming out the top of a strange garment called a bustier.  (Merry Widow by Josie Natori, the credits state.)
"What would you do," I asked Mary Mitchell, down from Massachusetts for the winter, "if your daughter turned up in a garment like that?"
"I'd kill her," she said, smiling pleasantly.
I turned the pages to a picture of a grinning woman in a fuchsia jumpsuit. Very tight, very low, with clusters of furry fluff here and there. The credits call this thing a catsuit and accuse somebody named Betsy Gonzalez of designing it.
Mrs. Mitchell studied the picture sadly. "Don't women believe in mystery anymore?" she asked.
We moved along to the ice-skating rink, looking for a person with at least some of the physical requirements to wear these garments.  Margaret Morrison skated by with her 2-year-old daughter. She is a flight attendant from Safety Harbor. The Cosmo cover seemed to amuse her.
"I wouldn't wear it in public," she said, "but I might put it on at home with my husband."
Then she looked closer. "Nope. I haven't got the boobs for it." She shrugged. "I've got an okay body, but this," she gestured to the bustier, "this is ridiculous."
A particularly striking outfit in Vogue did nothing for her. It was a dress with a sort of mop-top, many-colored hat. The mop motif also was carried in a fringe on the bottom of the skirt.
Tacky," said Mrs. Morrison.
Two schoolgirls came by. I showed them the bustier. Bingo
"Sure, I'd wear it," said Heather Rein, 16.
"Wow, I'll say " said Jessicalyn Van Pelt who is 15-going-on-35.
Quickly, expertly, they thumbed through two of the magazines, making quick, sure decisions, never once disagreeing with one another. "Like. Like. Don't like. Yes. Yes. No.  "
They hated Cosmo's catsuit. "Too revealing?" I asked hopefully.
"Oh, no. We don't like all that fluff."
After awhile, we moved into men's fashion as alleged by Details, a youth-oriented GQ wannabe. We showed people a full-page picture of a model wearing a $ 360 Bill Robinson suit.
The model was slouching and scratching his head and didn't have the jacket all the way on. Still, the display was nothing so outlandish as many of those the women's magazines were offering up.
"I guess I could wear one of those," said Chester Farris, a retired electrician from Muskegon, Mich. "The pants are too long see how they bag up at the bottom. And why don't they put a crease in them?
 "And why not a shirt? That boy's wearing a suit coat over his bare chest. And . . . my God, I don't think he has any socks on "
Greg Longo, a young man in wildly patterned trousers, thought the suit was fine. "The only problem is $ 360. And you've got to accessorize. Shoes, belt, and sooner or later you're going to need a shirt."
The magazine devoted several pages to studded, belted leather jacket displays. Longo wouldn't even look at them. "That's not my style," he said.
Later at the Pinellas Square Mall, we encountered two carefully dressed young men. Each had a 2-inch-wide streak of blond in his hair.
"The streaks aren't a trend," said Moses Williams. "The streaks are our personal style."
They hated the motorcycle outfits, liked the suit on the slouchy model. They also liked the women's clothes in Cosmopolitan and thought it would be great to have their girlfriends in the far-out clothes. Not Cosmo's catsuit, however, and not Vogue's mop dress.

BY DAY POSH LORNA IS TRAINEE BARRISTER...

latex catsuit

BY day bespectacled Lorna Whittaker buries her head in law books as she pursues her dream of becoming a barrister.
 But by night the prim-looking student pulls on a skin-tight PVC catsuit and brandishes a cat-o-nine-tails whip - as the sexy hostess of Britain's first fully-nude strip cabaret club.
 Amazingly Lorna's secret double life is not aimed at funding her studies at one of London's most prestigious law schools.
 The privately educated and designer-clad brunette is a millionaire's daughter.
 Instead she comperes the sophisticated sex show for KICKS.
 Lorna, 21, says: "If anyone had said to me a year ago that I would be introducing naked female dancers to a cheering crowd I would have said, 'No way'.
 "I'm more used to discussing the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
 "Now I find myself miaowing on stage in a latex catsuit and tons of make- up and brandishing a whip.
 "I suppose I'm a secret exhibitionist and my disguise makes me feel incredibly confident.
 "Whenever I pull it on, I feel like a completely different person.
 "I'm no longer Lorna the law student, I'm a pure sex kitten. And even though it's total fantasy, the transformation makes me feel all woman.
 "I can be as outrageous as I like because that's what the audience expects. And I know that when I peel it off at the end of the night, I become Lorna the law student again.
 "Although I know I'm not a schizophrenic, I admit I get a real kick out of being two totally different people leading totally different lives.
 "By day I live in a normal and respectable society. But by night, everything changes - it's so risque and very exciting.
 "The men and women I meet in the club are so unlike my friends at college and the people I grew up with. I wouldn't change either but it's nice to be able to escape from the real world into a land of total fantasy.
 "And standing in front of an audience of men I've never met before, all focusing their attentions on me, does feed my exhibitionist streak and give me a sense of power." Lorna, in the final year of her degree course, also believes her act will improve her performances in court after she qualifies.
 She said: "Standing in front of a club full of men in a catsuit has to help your confidence and make it easier to plead in front of a judge."
 Well-spoken Lorna, whose parents live in a six-bedroom mansion with swimming pool in Hampshire, started working at the up-market SophistiCats club in London's Marylebone three months ago.
 Using the name of Whiskers, she introduces a bevy of sexy showgirls with feline pet names who do a sexy striptease and dance round a pole to classical music and opera.
 But Lorna admits that on the club's opening night she needed a stiff drink before she went on stage. She says: "I was very nervous but a couple of gin and tonics gave me the Dutch courage I needed.
 "I'd also invited a few of my rich pals to give me support.
 "They were dubious at first and thought at first it was just another sleazy strip joint.
 "But they were surprised at how up-market and professional it was - and they had to admit they loved it.
 "When I went on stage everyone cheered and I soon began to really enjoy myself.
 "The catsuit is a real attention-grabber.
 "It also opened my eyes to how sexy and feminine dressing up can make you feel.
 "So much so that I went out and spent pounds 500 on silky lingerie, stockings and suspenders.
 "Being Catwoman has introduced me to a whole new world of sexy underwear." But Lorna, who has a luxury pounds 230,000 three-bedroom apartment in West London, insists she is sexually conventional in the privacy of her own bedroom
 She says: "I'm not into kinky sex - what I do is purely a job, a role I act out.
 "Regardless of my image on stage, I'm not at all promiscuous.
 "I prefer romantic liaisons and long-term relationships. I don't need to dress up in rubber to enjoy a good sex life. Romance does much more for me."

Taking control; Spandex becoming the material

If life within the '90s seems hopelessly unwieldy, almost always there is spandex to create things into place. It's the ultimate controlling element of the periods.
Jane Fonda and Catwoman Michelle Pfeiffer have worn it. And so do Nancy Kerrigan and Dan Jansen. Remember how Andre Agassi slipped spandex pants under his tennis shorts last summer? Even Jessica Rabbit might have worn some Lycra in her slinky ruby-red dress.
The stretchy fibres bring flexibility to workout lack catsuits, tights you wear for the mall, swimsuits and quite a few bodysuits. Whine, in case you must, about their hold on tight you. But without spandex, control-top pantyhose would be virtually useless plus your stockings would inevitably bag on the knees.
Always combined with other fibres, spandex gives lack catsuits just a little hug. As forty somethings and beyond nudge middle age, they seek comfort and camouflage in their grip.
"If the body is good shape, it shows rid of it. Whether it's sub-standard, it holds it in," noted Valerie Steele, a fashion historian for this Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
Shea Gordon, a Kansas, Mo., artist, loves design for it in their own riding pants. "It's such as an exterior girdle," she said.
"It enables you to feel kind of secure," acknowledged model Rose Walton of suburban Overland Park, who loves to top her short unitards with blazers or a sarong wrapped with African fabric.
Indeed, spandex is part of the technological modem driving the style folks currently, and its role is expanding in designer day lack catsuits. Within the New York fall shows beneath the big tents last month, Nicole Miller offered skating dresses and computer-patterned Lycra bodysuits.
Donna Karan, and others, dished up stretchy dresses and leggings for DKNY and molded bodysuits under suits in her signature collection.
Not too spandex is totally new to fancy fashion runways. The French started culling through the ski slopes in early 1980s. Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld set fashion on its ear within the mid-1980s by pairing long jackets broke and alone greater than stretch leggings on lean long legs. Startling mainly because it was back then, the theory evolved to the uniform of tights and big tops seen usually now on the streets and at the malls on women coming from all sizes and ages.
In the years ahead, Lagerfeld's signature collection this spring launched a sheer, clinging, long-sleeve body-slip dress worn under miniskirts and latex dress.
On the whole, the status linked to fitness has boosted the thought in any respect prices. You now locate a wall of workout wear for the streets and also the gym at the Gap. It's used and also to give fabrics in women's and men's lack korsagen some retentive life.
Spandex will be the generic term for Lycra, which Du Pont introduced about 1957. When a label reads spandex, it may well or may not mean Lycra, but Lycra is decidedly the best choice. Du Pont has nine Lycra plants around the globe; the newest opened in Singapore last summer.
 Lycra was created, according to Du Pont press materials, by the chemist named Joe Shivers, who worked for a decade to invent something superior to the industrial-strength rubber going into foundation garments. Today's Lycra is an elastic fibre that may stretch up to 500 per cent and spring time for its original shape.