Long before its latex incarnation became a ubiquitous element of modern fetish fashion, the skintight catsuit was a garment associated with danger, power and sex.

Long before Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman stamped the black rubber catsuit indelibly on mainstream consciousness in 1992’s Batman Returns, the body-hugging one-piece had been the outfit of choice for successive generations of vamps, villainesses and secret agents.

From Louise Brooks in silk and Eartha Kitt in animal prints to Emma Peel in leather and countless comic-book superheroines in Spandex, the catsuit-clad woman has always represented a unique evocation of feminine and feline qualities: sultry beauty, lithe-limbed and sensual sleekness, agility, and the lethal force of a hunter-killer.

But it is in the realm of fetishism and BDSM that the catsuit finds its ultimate expression. In this world as in no other, the second-skin qualities of this garment are celebrated, refined and exaggerated. Revealing yet covering, protecting yet imprisoning, inviting yet denying, it adapts effortlessly to suggest dominance, submission or switchability. 

What better fabric than latex for the layer that wraps the fetishist’s skin tightly from head to toe? In appearance, texture and performance, natural sheet latex behaves more like living human skin than any synthetic fabric or animal hide.

If latex is the ultimate catsuit material, then the latex catsuit, with its numerous modern refinements, surely has good claim to be the ultimate fetish garment.

In even the earliest commercially available rubber catsuits, which had no pretentions at all to “fashion”, one could see the beginnings of a fetish classic.

Early British rubber clothing specialists such as Kastley and Sealwear were well aware of fetishists’ interest in close-fitting all-over garments.

Despite styling and fit that sometimes seemed closer to WW2 frogmen’s suits, and the lack of any colour but black, the pioneering creations of the 1950s and ’60s established the latex all-in-one as a fetish staple for women and men.

These traditional products still represented the “catsuit standard” when the original Skin Two club opened its doors in London for the first time in 1983, marking what is widely regarded as the start of the modern fetish fashion scene.

It was a scene driven not by middle-aged suburban couples enjoying their predelictions behind drawn curtains, but by young “out” pervs from the music, clubbing and media worlds, and a new generation of innovative designers who used rubber in new, bold, sexy and fashion-conscious ways.

For the first time, it was possible to get rubber clothes that were fetishistic but also stylish. And many of these emerging latex fashion labels endeavoured to include a catsuit design in their collections.

But the creation of a one-piece all-over rubber garment that can achieve a skintight fit and move freely with the body without tearing is not the simplest of tasks, and not all those early attempts by fashion labels to tackle the complexities of catsuit engineering were successful.

But in 1989, a young London fashion designer called Helen Saffery launched a new label called Libidex, which radically changed the shape of the latex landscape.

Combining the thinnest, stretchiest, purest latex sheet with the glued-seam style of traditional rubber fetish clothing, Helen brought a new standard of fit to a whole range of rubber garments that had never been quite as skintight as they were supposed to be.

A new standard of fit came to a whole range of rubber garments that had never been quite as skintight as they were supposed to be 

For the first time you could get latex stockings, tights, leotards and catsuits that fitted as smoothly and closely as their nylon and Lycra equivalents always had.

But despite their glued seams, Libidex garments were not a return to the “pre-fashion” latex era. The truth was that skintight rubber had never looked more fashionable than it did in Helen’s designs.

When Libidex’s current owner, Simon Rose, bought the company in 1998, he had good reason to retain Helen’s services as a designer and consultant.

“Helen was the real inspiration behind the original Libidex catsuits,” he says. “Up until then, the catsuit was regarded mainly as a sexual item of clothing, not primarily as a fashion item.

“Helen changed the whole approach to the catsuit by creating a much more carefully tailored fit, especially to the legs and feet, which she modelled on actual human forms.”

Her Matrix catsuit was a real innovation. It made a fashion feature out of building the garment from a series of panels, replacing the traditional horizontal seams joining torso to legs with leotard-style parabolic seams arching over the hips and buttocks.

“It’s not surprising that the Matrix became the benchmark Libidex catsuit,” Simon remarks.

Under his direction, Libidex continued to build on its reputation for superior tailoring of close-fit garments, ensuring that the label has remained a premier purveyor of latex catsuits and legwear to this day.

Recently, however, Rose decided to take Libidex’s commitment to catsuit enthusiasts to a new level, by introducing a brand new collection of suits in numerous styles. The new range will be available in every imaginable latex hue, courtesy of Radical Rubber, the company’s sheet latex manufacturing arm. 

“I’m a great believer in fashion evolving rather than creating something entirely new from scratch,” he explains, “and I think that’s what the fetish fashion wearer wants.

“So I’ve brought in a number of new ideas, twists, and variations on a theme — subtle innovations if you like — and I’ve also started moving towards one or two more ‘serious’ items, with more overtly fetish themes such as bondage.

“Of course, since we manufacture our own latex sheeting through Radical Rubber, this gives us a great opportunity to explore new concepts in colours and effects. I wanted to show how amazing these outfits can look in the Radical Rubber colours and to show people they don’t have to wear black to look fetishy!”

Being creative, for Mr Rose, apparently means that he finds it very hard to stand back and rest on his laurels. When he gets new ideas for styles and designs, he just has to go off and realise them.

“I sometimes feel there isn’t enough innovation in our fetish fashion world, so I want to inject some new ideas and approaches which fetish fashion aficionados will appreciate. But at the same time I want to make latex more accessible to a wider audience,” he says.

“There are a lot of people out there who want to try out latex, but are a bit timid because they think they have to wear something outrageous to fit in. I hope that our Libidex creations can be accessible but also cool and stylish.”

The new Libidex catsuit range — photographed by Gothic Image, who kindly supplied the selection of images shown in our galleries, above right — is available now.