PHOTOGRAPHY OR PORNOGRAPHY ? PART III: The Camera Goes Kinky. Niche Is Not A Dirty Word
PORNOGRAPHY, PHOTOGRAPHY, KINK? THE QUESTION WE KEEP ASKING (Editor’s Note)
Photography can arouse, document, advertise, persuade, provoke, flatter, exploit, empower and occasionally make everybody in the room profoundly uncomfortable. An erotic photograph can become a historical document.
1. Alva Bernadine artworks - The Eye of Photography Magazine
2. Alva Bernadine, Pornography As Art virtual billboard exhibition, 2015 – Barbara Picci Blog
3. Pornegrafik, adult photography monograph by photographer Ken Probst, published in 1998. Features duotone plates documenting behind-the-scenes realities of the California adult film industry – Twin Palms Publishers
A pornographic image can eventually enter a museum. A fashion photograph can borrow the visual language of pornography. Art can deliberately imitate pornography precisely because pornography has become part of the visual vocabulary of modern life…
4. 1890 Spanking image from the 19th century, Rod Ashford's 1999 Erotique collection of vintage smut via Wikimedia
LINGERIE, KINK & THE GOLDEN AGE OF FETISHISM
Paris in the early twentieth century was already exceptionally good at turning desire into style. Fashion, theatre, cabaret, prostitution, advertising and erotic publishing were constantly borrowing from one another.
The boundaries between respectable fashion and the erotic underground could be surprisingly thin. A corset could be underwear, costume, fashion statement—or fetish object, depending on who was looking.
5/6. 1920s Paris, Nativa Richard posing in fetishwear Yva Richard / Nativa Richard posing as Empress, 1920s in avant-garde fetishwear by Yva Richard, a pioneering Parisian boutique run by her and her husband in the 1920s.via MessyNessyChic
The Richards understood something that would later become fundamental to the modern erotic industry: you don't have to sell sex directly. You can sell the fantasy surrounding it. Leather corsets. High heels. Gloves. Masks. Boots. Handcuffs. Unusual lingerie. Restrictive garments. Costumes suggesting authority, submission or theatrical transformation.
7/8 Erotische Fotografie 1890-1920 / Studio Ostra Paris ~ Early Fetish Erotica via Femdom Resource
One of the most extraordinary examples was Yva Richard, the Parisian company associated with Nativa Richard and her husband L. Richard. Founded in 1914, the business initially dealt in fashionable lingerie, shoes, hats and elaborate garments.
But during the 1920s and 1930s it developed into something much more interesting: a sophisticated commercial ecosystem selling fetish fashion alongside photographic representations of it.
The object became part of the fantasy, and Nativa Richard herself became part of the brand. Rather than hiding behind the product, she modelled many of the company's creations, appearing in photographs that transformed clothing into performance. She could become a character, a fantasy figure, an advertisement and a fetish icon simultaneously.
9/10 Yva Richard, 1920s-1930s L’âge d’or du fétichisme via MessyNessyChic
Its catalogues circulated through the same broad culture of magazines, advertisements and private collecting that had already helped erotic photography become commercially viable.
11/12 In 1920s Paris, husband and wife (Nativa and L. Richard) designed, made and sold fetishwear via MessyNessyChic / Carlo Mollino, Untitled Polaroid 1960s The famous La Lingerie Moderne catalogue became something like an early analogue version of an online fetish boutique. The merchandise became increasingly adventurous: leather, rubber, metal accessories, masks, collars, boots and elaborate costumes. It helped establish fetishism as a visual language. And visual languages travel.
13/14 Diana Slip was known for its avant-garde approach and collaboration with renowned photographers, including Brassaï and the Biederer Studio. Their work appeared in many of the same publications as Yva Richard’s / Diana Slip was known for its avant-garde approach and collaboration with renowned photographers, including Brassaï and the Biederer Studio
Yva Richard was not alone. Another Parisian enterprise, Diana Slip, founded by Léon Vidal and his wife Diana, entered the same expanding territory. It too combined daring lingerie, fetish-inspired clothing and provocative photography. The competition between these companies tells us something important about the period.
15/16 Fashion Bondage II print on canvas by Theblacksheep Group (Luís Rocha dos Reis) based in Portugal, conceptual erotica fine art on Saatchi Art / Fetish lingerie digital art print on canvas by Theblacksheep Group, Saatchi Art
Fetishism was not merely some underground curiosity lurking in a dark corner of Paris, it was becoming a market. That distinction would become enormously important to twentieth-century erotic culture.
17/18 Stocking fetish. Attributed to D'ora (Dora Kallmus) in the July 1937 issue of Gay Book magazine (which also has some Charles Guyette images) / CHOCOLATE FETISH Palm Springs CA by William Dey, United States. Photography, Black & White on Paper via Saatchi Art
FROM PARIS TO AMERICA: A BOOMING NICHE MARKET
Paris was not alone. Across the Atlantic, American entrepreneurs were discovering that fetishism could be packaged, photographed and distributed as a specialised commercial market.
19/20 Charles Guyette Corset 1950s Photographs Irving Klaw-reprint, © Badrabbit Redux 2011-2026 / Charles Guyette, Corset, c. 1950 vintage gelatin silver print
Among the pioneers was Charles Guyette, later nicknamed the “G-String King.” His work connected fetish fashion, photography and publishing, helping establish a distinctly American version of the European fetish aesthetic, his career helped establish an American version of fetish publishing and fashion.
Guyette's importance lies partly in the fact that he understood the commercial potential of visual repetition. The props changed, but the basic vocabulary remained remarkably consistent. A niche does not need everybody. It needs enough people who really, really want the thing.
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Click HERE for the first part of the series or here for the eccentric fantasies of the fetish photographer Eric Kroll
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