Friday, September 29, 2006

British GQ Style

"Live Life Lux". In some fucking latex. Damn right. Supposedly, this issue of GQ Style is already on the newsstands. In the UK!

It's too bad I can't find any place online to purchase this magazine. Barnes & Nobles is the best bet for us US folks. Stay tuned. If I can find a copy, every page of interest will be scanned and posted.

No BLB clothing in this issue, but I think I can forgive them just this once.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Stuff Every Latex Consumer Should Know About 4D Transparency Variations & Color Name Misnomers Vol. 2: Hot Pants, Hot Colors

This is a continuation of this post.

So I finally decided to post something edumacational. It's been well over a month or just about a month since. I welcome you to:

Stuff Every Latex Comsumer Should Know About 4D Transparency Variations & Color Name Misnomers Vol. 2: Hot Pants, Hot Colors


The latex sheeting dictators, 4D Rubber, have titled their super bright series of colors Vibrant. Yes, there are other colors besides black and red in latex fetish land! Latex clothing firms and DE's [design entrepenuers] may refer to this set of colors as Vibrant, Neon or Hot. They are very much brighter than the other 4D latex colors as a whole, except for turquoise. In my opinion, Vibrant Turquoise [similar to "smurf" blue or turquoise stones] while noticably brighter than the Supatex set, is still much darker than the rest of the Vibrants.

Colors

All of the Vibrant colors are: bright pink, magenta, green, lime green, turquoise, lemon yellow, yellow, orange, red. So what's the difference between lemon yellow and yellow? And how about lime green? They are pretty similiar, but they can be easily told apart. Unfortunately, I only have a small swatch of the lime green that's not big enough to be photographed properly. You're outta luck on that one, kids. When the time comes for me to buy rolls of those colors or if I can get my hands on some scraps from a fellow D.E., I'll photo them and post.

Bright Pink [aka "Hot Pink"] and Magenta are both very bright pinks, magenta cosiderably more so than bright pink. You can see the difference between them below:


This picture really doesn't capture the eye-blinding-acid pink qualities of Magenta as seen in person. I recently made a matching outfit in Magenta with Black trim. Now, if you've seen the Bright/Hot Pink in person, you full well know it's pretty damn bright. After working with Magenta, Hot Pink looked like a regular light pink in comparison!

Transparency Issues

Unlike the Supatex set which come in 9 gauges, the vibrants only come in three gauges [thicknesses]: .20mm, .33mm, and .45mm. The thicker the gauge, the less transparent the sheeting will be. The thinner the gauge, the less opaque. FYI: the most used gauge is .33mm followed by .45mm. I'll write a seperate post about thicknesses soon.

The Vibrant set of colors tend to run almost as, or just as transparent as the Semi-Transparent set. Talking 'bout .33mm here. .45mm is much more opaque. Magenta and Vibrant Red seem to be the most transparent out of the bunch. Just to confuse you more, I read in a forum somewhere [I don't remember where] someone refering to Magenta as "the Transparent Hot Pink". Be prepared to show some nipples and thong if you get an outfit in Vibrant Green, as well. Vibrant Turquoise is just as opaque as the regular colors.

Here's a crappy pic of the post-it note placed under the Magenta sheeting. If I knew how to focus a camera, you would be able to see the post-it note and the writing quite clearly.

Vibrant Red ahould also be renamed "Transparent". In this pic, a Vibrant Red w/ silver trim headband is placed over a black and white version. They are both placed on top of Magenta sheeting to show color contrast.

Take Five! Smoke Break

This one's for all you cigarette smoking Michelin Man lovin' rubberists out there:



I came across this gem in a book called Counter Culture: The Allure of Mini-Mannequins about tiny-sized mannequins and interesting counter top displays from the days of....way before I was born.

France's Michelin Man was one of the most ubiquitous af all branding figures, owing to its countless iterations. --pg. 181

Unfortunately, that's all the book says about this ashtray. I can't tell if the MM sitting on the ashtray is made from actual rubber, but I sure as hell doubt the base is! Hello tire fire! I can't account for anyone else's opinions, but burning rubber smells like skank.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

On the Scene: Montreal Fetish Weekend

A recurring character on the show and now roving reporter, Andre aka Dictator for Life [yo!] aka Owner_Operator, generously let me gank his recap of the Montreal Fetish Weekend. Here it is edited for length:

So after a long and arduous week, the pet and I got away to the great white north for a much needed escape from reality. Montreal's Fetish Weekend could not have come at a better time and I was determined to rock out and enjoy myself to the fullest. In a rented Mercury Grand Marquis (a more appropriate model of vehicle I couldn't imagine) Jess, The Baroness and I tore ass out of NYC last Thursday afternoon and headed to Montreal... only to get stuck in traffic for almost two hours just outside of the George Washington Bridge as I missed the exit for The Palisades and had to loop back on the Garden State. So some 7+ hours, 300+ miles and the worst dinner this side of the Mississippi later we hit the Canadian border and customs. Now I had heard all sorts of strange stories from other pervs who had been traveling to fetish events back and forth across the border, many of which had me pretty worried that I'd lose some of my precious gear. Well thankfully the customs guys didn't do any more than ask us where we're going and for how long in his French accent. Maybe it was my lovely passengers or my ridiculously Jewish last name, I don't know but I did snicker a bit when he asked me, "do you have any weapons in the car?"

Well so it seemed we left the whip, the electro toys and the vibrators home for nothing.
So we pulled into Montreal around 10:30 PM and the first person we see as turned on Boul. de Maisonneuve and approached the hotel, Auberge Le Pomerol, was Mistress
Xena crossing the street to go grab a bite. So cool to see a friendly face right off of the bat! So up to the room to freshen up and over to the The Baroness room, where Poindexter had prepared quite a lovely spread for her arrival: Champagne, cheese, fruit, chocolates, the works. Now that's service! With belly's full, and weary heads to drifted off to bed with visions of latex and late nights ahead.

Saturday morning I woke up early as usual. In the hotel restaurant downstairs, I ran into a bloke who calls himself Observer that I know from around the kinky interweb. I've chatted with him online for quite a while now and we share an interest all types of geeky things aside from rubber gear and bizarre sexual practices. Nice to put a face to the syntax. The three of us headed over to the big
Polymorphe flagship shop at Sexe Cite to go check out some sex toys and latex and hopefully not spend too much money. A really nicely laid out shop, with a good amount of space and tons of latex upstairs, we immediately felt intoxicated by that sexy, rubbery scent. Didn't buy too much there, just a skirt, thong and gloves for the pet and a pair of gloves for myself. While I think Polymorphe's quality is probably unparalleled (which owes a lot to Mario making his own latex from scratch!), I think the designs are a little on the plain side for me and nothing all that spectacularly mindblowing like some of my favorite designers Marquis or HW Designs [and Betty LaBamba! -GM]. I find the mens line particularly lacking, but most latex designers really don't make much in the way of mens gear for that matter.

Off to Club Sin at Cleopatra for the opening night party/meet and greet. The pet looked absolutely stunning in her white
Jane Doe bustier and skirt with waist cincher and matching hot.The coup de grace of the outfit however was the amazing latex "feather" boa that Heidi of the newly formed Strange Lifeforms made custom for Jess and shipped directly to our hotel. What a sensational piece and a real attention getter! The door girl was so enamored with it, I didn't think we'd get it back when we let her try it on. Here's the group of us as we headed out to the party. For a better photo of Jess' outfit, peep my photo page.
While the venue was a bit small for the number or people (as Xena said, it definately looked oversold), the music was good, the booze flowed freely and the company was fantastic. We ran into a whole bunch of people we knew from NY and we all sort of huddled together, catching up, making plans for the weekend and just shooting the shit. I did finally get to meet Steffy The Rubberdoll in the flesh (or should I say rubber), and she was quite a site to behold and a real pleasure to be around. Unfortunately the loud music and heavy mask she wears doesn't lend much to making conversation. The music was a nice mix of techno, industrial, new wave, old punk and other stuff and my favorite of the three nights. The party was hosted by
Bianca Beauchamp, who looks great in latex, has a beautiful smile and doesn't speak much English. Thankfully Jess and I met a woman kind enough to translate her disseration to us. The speech interested me little, but the translator (her name was Mite, pronounced Mighty) had a fantastic outfit on that involved a white latex leotard, matching stockings and blue plastic, corrogated tubes that extended from different ports around her body like some 50's Sci-Fi alien. Pair it with blue hair and a blue latex backpack (!) and hers was one of the best outfits I saw all weekend. Too bad I didn't take any photos of her .


The close of the party saw the Pomerol crew role back to the hotel for a little drunken after party vacbed fun! YAAAAAAAA!!! Vacbeds fucking rule! How awesome it is to be frozen like Han Solo in carbonite or have your friends and lovers stuck like that while you play all sorts of fun games with them. So hot! Observer and Erik were vacbed virgins and it's always cool to see how people react to crazy shit like that the first time. Apparently the enjoyed themselves quite a bit. I love it too and with Jess messing with me all over, from my head to my toes, I was pretty turned on despite being about drunk and tired enough to pass out.

The weekend was already becoming a blur or good eats, tall drinks and lovely latex. I was really surprised at how French Montreal is. I figured that things would pretty much be in both French and English, but was shocked when all the road signs were in French alone. Many of the people my age and younger don't even speak English. Weird. Not to be some dort of an Anglophile, but you'd think they'd take up the language of The Empire. When not falling on their faces and begging for change in strange tongues, the people in Montreal are pretty friendly for the most part, at least the kinky ones are. I had some interesting conversations in broken English with a few people at the Club Sin party. A very tall girl with closely cropped hair (Jeannie, Janie?) absolutely loved my goggles and begged me (literally) to borrow them. It was pretty hot to have some strange, scantily clad Quebecua begging me to do anything! The conversation somehow veered towards video games as she told me that she was studying to be a 3D animator. Some dude who thankfully spoke English and I talked about metal for a while, commenting that Celtic Frost was coming around to play. He rattled off a litany of death metal, black metal and grindcore bands who's names I had never heard of before. Boy, I'm getting old...

After an afternoon spent wandering around downtown Montreal we were off to the NorthboundLeather shop for a cocktail party, hosted by an internet pal of mine named Isabeau. Her shop was really fantatic, with an nice stock of mostly leather gear, but a lot of latex too. She, Sebastian and the rest of the crew were fantastic hosts and she served up a great drink - the green tea martini, which I had never had before. Latextacy party. This party was my favorite of the three events, as it was located in a very large, old, art deco theatre. The space provided plenty of room to dance, schmooze, play or whatever else one might do at such an event. The music however, left a little to be desired, just the blaring thump of hardcore techno - over and over and over. Combined with the vodka and beer that I was downing and it started to make my belly ache! Jess looked fantastic in her military top from The Baroness and I looked smashing as usual in my custom doctor's outfit. This party featured some really fun shows, including a shibari (Japanese rope bondage) demonstration by Amrita and Master Luk that was executed beautifully. Amrita is wickedly lovely with a suitably evil grin for someone who tortures people for a living. What impressed me most about her was her speed at tying her subject up. Obviously she's a pro and loves what she does. I liked Master Luk's style too. He was rocking a heavy black rubber apron, heavy black gloves and two meathooks (!). A man after my own heart.

The Polymorphe fashion show was fantastic and went off without a hitch, impressive since Eric (the fest's coordinator) later told me that they only had 300 sq ft backstage for about 30 people to get dressed and ready! Highlights included Jean Bardot (aka Rubberella) pony play act, where she looked stunning in an English riding outfit and engaged in bizarities with a girl in a pony mask and another in a sort of Louise XIV dress.

The show was capped by a very cute skit involving rubber cats and mice, including one that was probably the biggest dude I've ever seen in latex! Fucking frightening!

There were a couple of other shows that it seemed I missed, including one involving a catsuited strip tease and Rubberella doing all sorts of nastyness in the VIP area. The VIP section (we had VIP passes) was pretty disappointing. Simply a very hot room that had it's own bar and offerred a few shows, none of which I caught since I couldn't bare the heat. The VIP area should have been up on the balcony, since that was the most comfortable area and it provided the best view of the shows on stage. I did get a chance to talk with Ted more than I ever had before and we joked about the pitfalls of threesomes, told travel stories and just generally bonded around guy stuff.

Eventually the night devolved into Xena beating Jess with my cane as I held her down and delivered a few spanks myself. Pretty hot stuff! Jess wasn't in much of a mood to be beaten, but took it like a champ and her screams echoed through the club and probably all the way back to NYC. Ted, Di, Jess and I shared a tiny (man those Montreal cabs are small!) cab back to our hotels and called it a night

Sunday afternoon found our posse walking around the touristy, yet beautiful old city, amidst the cobblestones and cathedrals. With The Baroness and I craving duck products, we lunched at an outdoor restaurant near the seaport. Just a lovely afternoon in spite of the deary weather. How could I ask for more when I have the girl that I love by my side, good friends, good wine and a plate of foi gras in front of my amongst other delicious treats.

There were a lot of really cool outfits at this party, including a guy wearing what could only be described as a suit of armor with a gasmask helmet. He had all types of tubes running all over him him, making him look like some wicked battledroid or some such sci-fi nightmare. I so wish I had photos of him, but I was too busy drinking and schmoozing with him and his mistress. Another one of my favorite outfits of the night was worn by the lovely Slinka, a black rubber shrug and seamlessly blended into a neck corset that came up over her mouth. Just beautiful, and another one that I wish I caught a photo of. Observer introduced me to Miss Bardot, who was disappointed when I told her that the performance upstairs was closed due to the filming. Friendly and congenile, I'm sure they could have made an exception for her had we inquired! The setting was a bit too small for the big crowd and really didn't provide much room to get down and dirty, so we headed upstairs to a private room and had our own party up there. Xena, Steffy and my pet put on quite a show in there, with the action being broadcast on a giant screen downstairs in the club. Unfortunately, much of the action was lost due to some retard cutting back and forth to images from Hellraiser and other horror stuff, instead of just staying with the action upstairs. I watched with Erik and Obs, beaming in delight as it was my girl up there on the screen, caught in that beautiful latex sheeth. After a little bit, our crew stormed the room to join the fray. Xena came out to greet us, but unwittingly locked us all out with Jess in the vacbed and Steffy mummified in plastic wrap! Fortunately Steffy saved the day, managing to hop (pun intended) over to the door and unlock it with her bound hands. We had a beautiful time in there, me playing with Jess as the party thumped around us. Tim from SkinTwo was in there and The Baroness introduced us as he shot photos of Jess in her blue latex trap. Nice guy and a real latex lover, it'd be really neat to find some photos of us in the next issue.


Dante and Erik joined in on the rubbery madness and we just laughed the night away up there. After the party, Jess, Xena, Erik and I went out for some late night eats dressed in our full rubber gear. Wisely, we picked a coffee shop in the Gay Village area, where we wouldn't get hassled for looking like aliens. It was really fun to eat poutin and recap the night dressed as we were with hoods and all. Even with the quite liberal crowd we garnered more than a few stares. I heard one person say to another, "Welcome to Montreal!" If Montreal is this accepting of bizarre behavior, I don't want to leave! Erik cracks me up with his thick Teutnonic intonation, singing Prince and making it sound like Laibach! A perfect cap to our weekend, we hit the hay with bellys full and spirits light with all the many wonderful memories of our adventure.
So the weekend was a scintillating success and we'll be sure to return to Montreal for the next years party. It was so great to hang hard with the people we knew from NY, as well as new friends from around the globe, many of which I have known from
Rubberpal and other kinky websites. The parties were fun, but it's really the company we kept that make the memories special. It's hard to get back to "normal life" after such great times and we've sufferred a bit of a hangover moral wise, but alas life goes on. Things must get back to normal, work to be done, bills to be paid, etc. Luckily, I have the love of my life to share my passions for weirdness and kink with and that's the most wonderful thing of all.

As Porky Pig once said, "that's all folks!"

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Don't Get Your Shoe Caught in an Escalator

In reference to my first post, specifically those Croc cloggy shoes.

So I'm laying in bed in the fucking afternoon 'cuz I'm too fucking sick to do anything, just watching the news on channel 4 [nbc]. Apparently, there's some type of safety hazard with those fugly Croc shoe clog type things involving escalators. They tend to get sucked in to the escalator jaws or something. Croc HQ corporate said they would put elevator warnings on the hangtags.
I tried to pay more attention, but I was laughing too hard. Newscasts are kind of ridiculous. I just kept staring at the footage of random people stomping their feet in crocs. What's up with all the random footage of random crap in newscasts? I wanna be a cameraman and shoot buildings and people's fat asses as they walk. AND people stomping their feet in ugly rubber shoes.

I tried looking for the news story on the website, but gave up. Because it sucks. To navigate. So read this forum of people arguing if it's the parent's fault the gawddamn kid gets their gawddamn shoes stuck in an escalator. Or here for a newspaper article.

Indeed, life is tough for us connoisseurs of rubber shoes, no?

Elevators can be dangerous places. For instance, I few years ago I was at the Macy's at Herald Square in NYC. For those of you who don't know, they still have the original wooden [yes! wooden] escalators. If you think the regular metal ones are scary [I certainly do], these wooden ones look and sound like they were made by satan himself. So, some old broad decided to lay her fur coat on the handrests things. Good job, einstein. I'm not against fur [send all hatemail to hatemail@kissmyass.com btw I'm fucking vegetarian and have never bought a fur coat in my life, so go continue to eat a burger while you wear leather dr. martins and harass everyone who doesn't share your sacred opinions], but I was against this fugly p.o.s. nightmare of a coat. It was one of them massive eyesores Staten Island housewives cum their plus size granny panties about. So...as expected the bitch gets the coat caught in the escalator. Gets "caught" is not the right word for it: gets eaten is more like it. I couldn't stop laughing. Even the security guard had a look on his face like he wanted to bust out laughing. The old broad was freakin' out like crazy.

Moral of the story is: Watch where you put your rubber-shod feet. Or you'll be ordering only one stocking instead of the full pair.

Atomage Cape Pic

Since I'm still sick and feeling mentally incoherent [see my last rambling post], here's a pic from Atomage Bondage Supplement No.5. There's no publishing date anywhere on the mag, but it's probably from the mid 70's.


Monday, September 11, 2006

Stuff To Do in NYC

So what's there to do in NYC, latex fetish-wise? Lotsa people complain there's no "scene". Well, if you sit on your ass at home all the time, sure there's no place to go. Lotsa people also complain about not getting laid. Well, that's not my fucking problem. Lose some weight and try not to be so creepy around the ladies. Once again, not my fucking problem. Wanna complain and get nothing done? Become a politician. Hate all the parties going on now? Start your own shit.

I've provided the necessary links. I really don't feel like copying and pasting addresses, etc. Please click on them for more info if a party strikes you fancy. Please leave a comment if there's any broken links or you have a link to a party listed that's not on myspace's servers. Or if you got legitament beef or massive kudos. No flaming will be tolerated, tho'.

If you run a party or know of a really cool fetish [not goth] party not listed herein, please let me know. No spamming.

Weekly & Monthly Parties:

Bitch @ Snitch Every wednesday starting Sept. 6th at Snitch. I just saw a flier for this party. Seems gothy, but the goths have all but taken over fetish parties. Cuz shiny black stuff is awesome. I haven't been to this party, so I don't know it's deal. If you do, please leave a comment.

Black Cat Tuesdays @ Otto's Shrunken Head Otto's is a great place if you're into rock n rool, rockabilly, psychobilly, punk, etc. Ergo, I love the place. I went to the tuesday party once. It's more S&M (stand and model) than S&M. Read: Not a play party by any stretch of the imagination. If you just want to go hang out in your latex or crappy pvc and listen to good music, this is the place to be. You won't get kicked out if you didn't make any effort to get dressed.

The Baroness' Fetish Retinue @ The Alphabet Lounge Ah, the infamous Baroness. People either lover her or hate her. I've never dealt with her, so I have no opinion on the matter. Don't ask me to talk shit. 'Cuz I got none. I've never actually gone to this party because it's always on a sunday. For the past--I dunno--five years or something, I've been telling myself I should go at least once. But I always have something I have to do the next day that involves staying awake. Oh yeah, you really should make an effort to adhere to the dress code.

Byte @ the Delancy Lounge Another party on a sunday night. I actually went to this one though. All the nyc fetish glitterati go there. The musak is too loud and electronic for my tastes, but it's an awesome party. There is a play area if that matters to you. Make an effort to fit in with the young and hip fetish-dressed crowd.

Other parties:

SMack! Held on average twice a year. It's a big one. Always a fun time. Lots of hot rubber action. I suggest you buy tix in advance rather than wait nine billion hours at the door. Plus, it's $10 cheaper in advance.

The Black & Blue Ball NYC's answer to the Rubber Ball in London. Held once a year.

The Fetish Marathon Consists of SMack!, B&BB, Baroness party, and whatever TES has to offer all within the span of less than a week. Usually held in May or June.

Rubber Ball NY/Miss World Rubber Nov. 11 2006. Ever wanted to participate or see a rubber beauty pageant? Yes? Get you ass over there, then. There's a large prize pool, too! I'm a judge there, and it's on my birthday. Fun times.

Mr. East Coast Rubber This one's for the menfolk. October 13-15. It's a few parties and a "fetish fair" where you can get some hardcore shopping done after some hardcore partying.

Motherfucker Huge now legendary alterna party held the night before every major holiday. Fetish and hipster friendly. Expect to wait in line 'cuz your ass is not on the guest list. There's a reduced admission after 1am if you're cheap or don't wanna see the chosen cult/really hip popular band play.

For more events catering towards bdsm, burlesque, and arty type stuff check out the Eros Zine website.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Rubber History Mag Madness Vol.1: House of Rubber 3

If you know me, you probably have realized I'm a history buff and a big collector of vintage and contemporary latex rubber fetish mags, 'zines, and books. I've gone as far as to make it a personal cause of mine to collect as much as possible in order to preserve the unique and intensely fascinating rubberist legacy. One of my goals is to publish a book on the history of rubber and latex clothing from Colombus to now.

If you have vintage fetish mags that you don't know what to do with or want to get rid of, please email me: bettylabamba[at]bettylabamba[dot]com. I will take care of them like their my kids. Even if you have stuff you don't want to part with, scans and photocopies would be divine. We can talk about remuneration if donating ain't your thang.


I picked up this vintage beauty of a top shelf digest at an ebay auction. Good 'ole ebay. I find these "old skool" mags [especially Atomage--I'm crazy over the Atomage!] so much more fascinating than the glossy trendy Skin2's of the fetish world.

The name of this forgotten rubberist 'zine is "House of Rubber 3". The inside says 1975 (c) Exim Trading, Copenhagen Denmark. There's a sticker with the name Christine LeDuc and an Amsterdam address and telephone number on the back cover. I'm guessing that's a store, mail order company, or some kind of distributor. The front cover is what caught my attention. The cut and paste style graphics would make any punk fanzine editor proud! It has it's moments of genious, but overall the actual content is kinda boring. You know, just the usuall low budget 70's stuff. Some light bondage and dildo action here and there. However, check out the amazing hood with the Cyrano snoz and zip open mouth. By the amount of "bubbly-ness" around the zip and the type of zip used, methinks it's home brewed.

I invite you to view the entire old school rubberist zine's 32 pages in a wonderful flickr slide show. ATTN: I changed the image hosting. You can find the whole mag reproduced in this post. It may seem like it, but none of the images are cropped. I like to think the low production adds to the charm. The only photoshopping I did was to resize the scans and sharpen 'em a little bit so it's easier to see the details.

If you know anything about this little piece of rubberist history or want to chat about the dark ages of latex/rubber clothing [read: anything earlier than 1989], please feel free to email me: bettylabamba[at]bettylabamba[dot]com. Also, if you want larger versions of the pics, let me know.

Cheers!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Crowd pics from June SMack!


My rubberpal Andre was kind enough to send me crowd pics from my Betty LaBamba fashion show at the last SMack! party. I took the liberty of resizing the pics and cropping out people's hats and faces as much as possible. The store website is under construction, but you can swag at my eBay store. [I'm not doing orders this week 'cuz my hands are experiencing a carpal t. flare up. My right hand hurts like fuck. It's a good thing I'm right-handed. Not.]

Models are Jynx [in black & white], Miss Katonic [in green & black], and Anduin [in green and gold].

It was my second Betty LaBamba fashion show and lots of the usual fashion mayhem--but with latex! Here's some shots of a couple of outfits from the crowd perspective. I was "backstage" popping my head out from behind the curtain to check out the action. The party was loads of fun--SMack! parties always are--but I didn't do too much socializing and whatnot. My hands were tied dressing the gals, doing the usual behind the scenes stuff, and clean-up. That and I'm pretty socially inept as it is.


I'm proud that I was invited to participate in a SMack! party, the 10th anniversary party at that, too! Of course, there were other designers and design companies represented, but this post is all about moi today.

If you were at the June 3rd SMack! party and have pics of the Betty L. show, please email me: bettylabamba[at]bettylabamba[dot]com. I'm not going to use them for commercial purposes. It's just for my own records and enjoyment.

Cheers!

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Museum Alert! Love and War: The Weaponized Woman

I thought you guys might be interested in this. Not latex or rubber, but military fetishism often crosses over to our dear rubberist interests. You don't have to be a designer to get inspired! The Museum at FIT (my alma mater) is holding a [free!] exhibition called Love and War: The Weaponized Woman through September 9 - December 16, 2006.

Dr. Valerie Steele is the chief curator. She does a swell job of it, too. If the name sounds familar, it's because she authored Fetish: Fashion, Sex, and Power, The Corset: A Cultural History, Shoes: A Lexicon of Style, and China Chic: East Meets West and many other very good books on fashion theory and history. If you want to read up on fashion history, I highly recommend her books. Her writing style is not dry (like many other intellectuals), and her books are well planned and researched.

This Issey Miyake molded plastic red bustier from 1983 will be there. Mmm, shiny and plastic...*droool*...

FIT (the Fashion Institue of Technology) is located in NYC, NY on 27th street between 7th & 8th ave. The musuem is in the "E" building on 7th ave. Hours: Tues - Fri Noon - 8pm , Saturday 10am - 5pm. Closed Sundays, Mondays, and legal holidays. It's a few blocks walk going downtown from the 7th Ave. NY Penn Station entrance. By subway, FIT is right off the 1 train (red color line) 28th street stop. You can also take the R (yellow color lines) train to the 38th st. stop and walk 2 avenue blocks to 7th ave. If taking the E (blue color line) train, the closest stops are 32rd street or Penn Station/34th.

For a good cup of coffee, there's a Dunkin' Donuts across the street, and a cafe called "Brown Cup" on 8th and 27th. The "gay" Chelsea shops are right on 8th ave. going downtown if you're in the mood to shop. The famous and delicious Murray's Bagel is on 8th ave and 22nd or 21st I believe.

Also at the FIT Museum: check out the exhibit THE TAILOR'S ART while you're there.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Louis Vuitton Latex Tunic Top + Cool Fashion Trends

It's back to school time again, folks. Whoopeee. Actually, it's "let's buy a shitload of new clothes and worry about the credit card bills later time".

So...

I was going thru my fashion mags gathering tear sheets and overall inspiration--'cuz I'm a deh-zai-naaah. Yeah, if I keep telling myself that, it may come true. Shutup. Ok. Anyway, look at what I found:


For only $1704 you can buy this top w/ belt by Louis Vuitton. Found this pic in this months Harper's Bazaar in a spread called "Factory Girl" photographed by Peter Lindbergh.

Yes, it's unpolished latex, probably 0.45mm gauge, with some fugly belt and some type of lacing crap I could barely make out at the sides. I thought it was leather at first, but the glued seams gave it away. I have no idea who the peeps at Louis Vuitton contracted to make this. If you know %100 who made this, please leave a comment.

Let's go on to the trends. Trends are a good thing, especially if they are fetish/alterna orientated. Know what that means? You can get awesome stuff cheap at the trendy stores. Good places to check out are H&M, Zara, Wet Seal, Charlotte Russe, etc. Don't underestimate the power of mall shopping.

I tried reading the articles, but fashion journalism pisses me off to much. WWD.com is more my cup of tea. At $99 a year, I better fucking read it everyday...

Overall trends that may be of interest to you:

  • Trenchcoats: They were big last year and they will continue to rule this year as well. I noticed lots of sweet satin and leather numbers. And you know what the best part will be: walking around mid-day in a rubba mac won't seem so strange.
  • Fetish Shoes: Bold, dramatic curved lines is the rule of thumb. Classic Betty Page fetish all the way here. Be prepared to see round toe platform stiletto pumps with insanely shaped heels. I was going to scan some examples, but there were too many gorgeous shoes to choose from.
  • Buckles and Metallic Crap: The metallic accessory craze is showing no sign of stopping, which is pretty awesome. Now's the time to find some belts, purses, and hats to jazz up the de facto latex basics like catsuits and tank dresses. Fendi is oversized buckle happy this season. I mean huge shiny buckles.

That's it for now. My hands hurt too much to write anymore, so until next time my dears...

Friday, September 01, 2006

Lover of Latex: L.A. Tex

"The original idea was to make the kind of fetish website that I was looking for when surfing the net, but that I could never find. A website that has tasteful erotic but not pornographic fetish images, a website that has original images and not just a bunch of pictures scanned out of magazines or taken from other websites or newsgroups. In a way what I was looking for was a website that you could show to friends that are not into fetishism and they would still think it's nice and maybe even understand why you (or I) liked latex-clothing."
--Alexander Horn

A pal from Rubberpal and Myspace [Shout out! You know who you are. If you want me to link to your myspace profile instead, lemme know.] recently re-brought to my attention the wonderful rubber lovin' photographer Alexander Horn aka L.A. Tex.

It's free. It's extensive. Be prepared to spend hours looking at his work! Note: if you missed a major fetish party or want to relive it, chances are Mr. Horn covered it.

There's also a latex news section. Between that and 3xl, you got your international latex goings on covered.

Show some love by writing a funny caption. And respecting his copyright. Don't cop shit that ain't yours. It ruins the party for us goodie-two-shoes!