In Paris, latex continues to slide into mainstream fashion

Yesterday, Dior designer Raf Simons sent his haute couture collection for spring 2015 down the runway in Paris. The Belgian designer has won the affection of customers and approval of critics, deftly combining classic couture materials and silhouettes with a fresh, modern sensibility and eye-opening color palettes.

At yesterday’s show, that translated to stiff, tea-length pleated skirts striped with ribbons of red, yellow, and silver; bead-encrusted shifts and floral lace gowns; and the odd Ziggy Stardust-inspired jumpsuit.

Uniting these looks were the shoes: Nearly all the models wore glossy boots of what appeared to be latex. (British Vogue saw latex; Style.com saw vinyl. It could have been either, but no one missed those boots.)

With clear block heels, some of the boots coated models’ thin thighs like a second, pop-colored skin; while others just hugged them to their shins.

As Quartz has reported, latex has been slowly marching from a sideline fetish into mainstream fashion. It appeared recently on runways such as Marc by Marc Jacobs’, in looser, duller-surfaced garments. But what we saw at Dior was of the skintight, high-shine quality that so many fans of the material fetishize. That’s how French fashion editor Carine Roitfeld styled the stuff for Pirelli’s 2015 calendar, and even Kim Kardashian has been pushing the material into the public eye.

The great challenge for designers such as Simons—especially with a couture collection—is to take a house as storied as Dior, with all its heavy, historical trappings, and bring it into the 21st century. The boots gave this collection a leg up.

It will be fun to see if Dior’s couture clients pull them on.

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http://qz.com/334180/the-latest-look-in-high-fashion-latex/