Supple yet subversive, restrictive yet risqué, latex—as worn by Catwoman, Leigh Bowery and Britney Spears—empowers artists to explore fetish aesthetics alongside global ethics.
In the 1996 film Irma Vep, Maggie Cheung stands bewildered in a Parisian sex shop. The Hong Kong star is playing a fictionalised version of herself, siphoned into a black latex catsuit in preparation for her role as the titular Irma. She is wary, and has to be reassured by the costumier that this is the director’s vision for his femme fatale. To prove the point, the costume designer produces an image of Michelle Pfieffer in her much-coveted Catwoman get-up in Batman Returns (1992). This interaction carries many of the tensions associated with latex: it’s a symbol of eroticism, power and desire, but also protection. As the film unfolds, Cheung forms a sensual bond with her skintight outfit, not only as a way to access her elusive, alluring character, but also to better understand her own proclivities.
The delineation between ‘latex’ and ‘rubber’ in common parlance can be misleading. The former originates as naturally occurring milky substance that leaches from trees native to the Amazon, and forms the basis for all natural rubber products. It is more closely associated with a finer, highly malleable iteration, which can form a water-resistant ‘second skin’ around its wearer. When mentioned, the mind undoubtedly turns to surgical gloves, condoms and fetish wear, as opposed to heftier forms such as tyres or Wellington boots.
One of the most fascinating aspects of latex is its inherent contradictions. It is both utilitarian and strangely corporeal; robust yet capriciously fragile; and can symbolise dominance or utter submission. While working at a lingerie store in my early twenties, I remember a pair of black latex stockings cut to follow the legs’ natural curves, hung incongruously among diaphanous frills. They seemed flaccid and unsexy, like a pattern-cutter’s pieces laid out before a garment is stitched into life. It was only when adorned and oiled to a high shine that they transformed to become one with the flesh. Latex garments form a sheath that restricts movement in a manner that can feel powerfully erotic. As a fabric, latex also locks in bodily moisture and heat, raising both temperature and heart rate in the process.
These associations are coded within experiments during the 1960s and 1970s, employed by artists looking to subvert the patriarchal language of sculpture. Latex’s inherent pliability made it the antithesis of traditional materials such as bronze and marble. Louise Bourgeois used it to produce ‘soft’ surfaces that resembled sagging human skin: the phallic Fillette (1968) was rendered in plaster before being coated in latex to give it an unsettlingly tactile rust-coloured skin, and hung from a meat hook. Avenza (1968–1969) meanwhile, was formed from a liquid mould that hardened into a cluster of spherical protrusions. This eerie mass aligned with Bourgeois’ vision of the human body as ‘a land with mounds and valleys and caves and holes’ and she posed wearing a version designed as a grotesque extension of her own figure.
Eva Hesse also sought to encapsulate what has been termed ‘erotic abstraction’ (including in a group exhibition at London’s Courtauld Gallery last year). In works such as Augment (1968) and Expanded Expansion (1969) she embraced latex’s unstable nature (it degrades, stiffens and discolours over time) to produce fine sheets that resemble a wrinkled epidermis. These supple layers have since darkened and hardened, in what could be an analogy for the vulnerability of our fleshy form. Such degradation has raised questions as to whether the works should be preserved and restored, or left to disintegrate as part of their conceptual meaning.
This ephemerality is familiar to many latex-wearers. Once torn, it is extremely difficult to repair, and its reactivity to various metals and environmental exposure is challenging. The act of caring for an outfit—cleaning by hand and powdering, before storing it away from direct sunlight—is often viewed as a ritualistic fixation embedded in the wider lexicon of fetish and BDSM culture. References first appeared after the invention of the Mackintosh raincoat during the 1820s. In fact, the Mackintosh Society (founded in the 1920s) is considered one of the earliest fetish clubs to emerge in the U.K., thanks to its celebration of the pleasures inherent in wearing the rubbery substance.
AtomAge emerged several decades later, against a backdrop of sexual and political liberation. This British kink magazine was founded by John Sutcliffe in 1965, as a catalogue for goods originally designed for ‘lady pillion riders’ and later for fans who gained sensual gratification from wearing—and being seen to wear—such garments. Sutcliffe was fêted for much of his career and was an influence on the costumes for The Avengers TV series (1961–1969), as well as designing Marianne Faithfull’s catsuit in the movie The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) as a palatable rendering of the dominatrix. However, his publications later saw him prosecuted for obscenity. Despite—and perhaps because of—this contradiction, AtomAge became a sourcebook for subcultures looking to embrace a rebellious tension between dominance, submission and aesthetic allure, as evident in Vivienne Westwood’s SEX shop and the gender-bending play of artist, club kid and performer Leigh Bowery (whose influence on artists including Lucien Freud and Michael Clark was recognised in an exhibition at Tate Modern last summer) . In a celebrated 1994 studio shot by Fergus Greer, Bowery appears before the camera clad head to toe in a hooded latex bodysuit, sporting a high ponytail and pneumatic breasts in a seditious take on the feminised form.
These images form part of a kinky tapestry embedded within pop culture, which has spawned more diluted versions that reinforce stereotypes of gender and sexuality more than upending them (Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry can all be counted among this cohort). Unsurprisingly, a whole host of contemporary artists have interrogated this vast visual tableau. Pandemonia—a mysterious, London-based performance artist turned minor celebrity—stalks art fairs and fashion shows completely covered in latex, including a second skin featuring a full face mask and inflatable wig. This cartoonish façade pokes fun at the permeable barriers of art and consumerism, while pushing the idea of the manufactured feminine to the extreme. In donning latex, Pandemonia joins hosts of other wearers revelling in the spectacle of being looked at, while remaining entirely anonymous.
Jenkin van Zyl shares some affinities. The London-based artist utilises latex to push the notion of a ‘human’ body to its psychological extremes. He devises elaborate costumes for his films, forming groups of uncanny, monstrous characters that resemble humanoid animals, or else appear warped with enormous breasts and bellies. Van Zyl is inspired by the constructed artifice and wild fantasies inherent within club and fetish communities, and this source material has allowed him to establish his own identity, which includes a penchant for wearing his creations out on the street.
This yearning for sexual selfhood and community led writer and curator Anastasiia Fedorova to seek out latex imagery during the lockdown of 2020. In her book Second Skin (2025) she reveals an unfolding fascination with rubberwear that fuelled her algorithm, and the solace that people found by adorning outfits while isolated within their own homes. Beyond the satisfaction of constructing a look (or engaging in pleasure) before projecting it into the digital realm, many wearers were seduced by the complexities of ordering a bespoke latex garment, which demands specialist ateliers armed with meticulous measurements and weeks-long wait times. At a time when human touch was frighteningly out of reach for so many, the facsimile for skin-on-skin contact was more desirable than ever, with many declaring that its erotic suppleness simply cannot be matched by cheaper alternatives.
Singaporean artist Bart Seng Wen Long (who is interviewed in Fedorova’s book) explores these themes while interrogating far more entrenched power dynamics. In his ongoing research project Rubber Dreams of Its Lifetime (initiated in 2023 in collaboration with researcher and writer Kaisa Saarinen) he not only probes the visual language of latex fetishism and its rising popularity in Southeast Asia, but its cyclical origins within colonial extraction and commodification, which wrought devastation across South America from the 19th century before its mass cultivation across Indonesia, Thailand, and beyond.
The traces of this complex network of industrial oppression are also found in a video work by Wong Ping, the Hong Kong artist best known for his lurid animations. The Modern Way to Shower (2019) features a cam girl named Latex Ruby in an ethically fraught livestream broadcast through the artist’s phone. Adorned in a catsuit and hood, this anonymous figure promises to fulfil commands while rigged to a pole and doused in blue liquid, which resembles the water cannons used to subdue pro-democracy protestors. Throughout his ‘session’ the artist becomes distracted by news bulletins and messages alerting him to the proximity of the demonstrators and their violent persecution, while he begs Ruby’s attendant to treat her gently.
Ruby’s performance, both in her treatment as an acquiescent object and her ability to decide exactly what she is willing to do in exchange for further pay, acts an analogy for individual agency, injustice and commodification, which are all flattened by the age of internet discourse. It is through her outfit that she is able to project such conflict, as the roles of dominance and free will are twisted and subverted. What was originally designed to be an erotic encounter becomes an account of human intimacy, global politics and power play, all of which is contained by the subversive and restrictive sheath of a single, supple material.
