From Thierry Mugler and Hood By Air to Tom Ford and Bottega Veneta, here are the landmark moments in fashion history when the artful and the adult became bedfellows
A little over ten years ago, Carinne Roitfield, the stylist responsible for Tom Ford’s hypersexualised advertising campaigns, rankled at the prospect of being called the “queen of porno chic”. “Chic is good,” she told journalist Sarah Karmali. “Porno is not. I am very happy to use the word ‘erotic’. Not ‘pornographic’.” But a lot can change in the space of a decade, and porn has shifted from the sleaze-ridden margins of the internet further into mass culture. That probably has something to do with the mainstreaming of OnlyFans – and all those breathless Tom of Finland collaborations – but certain designers seem to be on a mission to align themselves with the aesthetics and allure of VIP entertainers.
Chloe Cherry, Mia Khalifa, and the quite ancient La Cicciolina are fast becoming front-row staples in Milan, which has had a thing for sensual glamour since the arrival of Gianni Versace and Dolce & Gabbana in the 80s. But the industry’s fascination with cult sex symbols reached an apotheosis last week when ascendant designer Luis de Javier outfitted a slew of celebrities for the annual Pornhub awards. Stormy Daniels received a lifetime achievement award, Diplo paused his set to say “We love your work!” It was, for obvious reasons, the horniest red carpet on the circuit, made even hornier by the inclusion of de Javier’s 3D-printed bull horns which burst forth from latex bustiers and mini dresses worn by Asa Akira and Natassia Dreams (who also walked alongside Julia Fox and Eartheater during his AW23 show).
As much as fashion loves to mine the slipstream of high and low culture, designers aren’t immune to the prurient structures of our times – those which frame porn as being the root cause of erectile dysfunction and a worldwide erosion of moral standards. “Now scientists say ALL porn is bad,” etc. But the fashion industry’s stance has always been relatively progressive: porn is subcultural, it is fun, and it is often innocent. Are porn stars the new punks? Are boobs the new legs? Are dicks the new boobs? If sex sells, then fashion is perhaps its chief merchant. From Thierry Mugler and Hood By Air to Ludovic de Saint Sernin and Bottega Veneta, here are some of the landmark moments in fashion history when the artful and the adult came to an explicit climax.
THIERRY MUGLER’S PORNSTAR CAMEOS
Thierry Mugler wasn’t the only designer to have reimagined the fashion show, but he was the one to have blown the format apart. In the 90s, he transformed the runway into the kind of high-camp pageantry that now feels par for the course: inviting Diana Ross to walk and casting trans models Connie Fleming and Teri Toye as regular fixtures. Mugler’s clothes were made for those from all walks of life. Or, as the silver-tongued Cathy Horyn put it, a Warholian blend of “socialites, peroxided Lido stars, pop singers, bouffant transvestites.” During the designer’s SS92 show, Jeff Stryker – the all-American gay, bi, and straight porn star – drew an audible gasp from the audience when he bent down to pick up the leather chaps he’d just peeled off. So too did Traci Lords, who eventually moved into mainstream cinema, but skulked the Mugler catwalk with a dollar sign covering her breast. Sex sells! Etc.
JONATHAN ANDERSON’S GRINDR
Grindr is obviously not the same as porn: it is a serious and romantic app used by people who want to make serious and romantic connections with one another. But it’s also more commonly used as a photo exchange platform – and occasionally a TaskRabbit – where people send explicit photos of their genitalia to each other before never speaking again. So it is, at least, porn adjacent. Seven years ago, Jonathan Anderson debuted his AW16 collection on the hook-up app. He described the decision as such: “We’re all humans, so we all have to be somewhat sexually attractive to someone. That’s the name of the game with clothing” – which is particularly true of Anderson’s designs, which thrum with a latent and sometimes perverse eroticism.
THE PORNHUB COLLABORATIONS
When Shayne Oliver launched the fashion world’s inaugural Pornhub collaboration, he also paved the way for Ludovic de Saint Sernin, SSENSE, and Luis de Javier. It’s now a bit less shocking than when Hood By Air first emblazoned tanks and underwear with the video site’s logo in 2016 – and beyond the obvious “Can I shock you?” message, it also means Pornhub has played an active role in supporting young design talent. As one of the world’s most trafficked websites, people are clearly logging on and they are clearly getting off and perhaps that’s not a completely radical idea. What would be radical is if a haughty, established label took on the porn behemoth – perhaps Chanel, Dior, or Hermès? Because pornstars wear Birkins, too.
THE FRONT-ROW INFILTRATION
Chloe Cherry, Mia Khalifa, and Ilona Staller (AKA La Cicciolina) started their careers making NSFW content but they’re now part of a new breed of fashion socialites. Cherry – bolstered by her appearance in Euphoria – has walked for GCDS and Blumarine, Khalifa sat front row at just about every AW23 show, and La Cicciolina – who has walked for Jean Paul Gaultier – is now a consistent fixture on the Bottega Veneta guest list. But their entrance into the upper echelons of fashion has been a hard-won battle – Khalifa, for example, spent more than half a decade being publicly vilified for her three-month-long stint in the adult entertainment industry in 2014. The 11 videos featuring the former pornstar garnered more than 642 million views on Pornhub until a #JusticeForMia campaign managed to shift the narrative around her stardom. Fashion, which had previously been “so closed off,” as she told us earlier this year, soon came knocking. “I hope they don’t realise that I’m there and take my privileges away.”
THE CONTROVERSY OF GIGI DIOR
Monsieur Dior might have been quite thrilled that Gigi Dior, the “super milf” of OnlyFans, had adopted his surname. The fashion house’s lawyers weren’t so convinced, though, claiming that she had sullied the brand’s name with her subscription service. “This is ridiculous, my name has nothing to do with couture and the funny part is what I do usually involves wearing no clothes at all,” she said in response to the lawsuit. A “dilution by blurring and dilution by tarnishment,” is what the brand’s official statement said, which is ironic given both parties trade in desire. The name, if anything, was proof of the brand’s enduring lore and compounded a longstanding tradition of ostracised people, including those involved with the queer ballroom scene, adopting luxury monikers.
THE REDISCOVERY OF TOM OF FINLAND
Here is a non-exhaustive list of all the Tom of Finland collaborations that have surfaced in recent years: JW Anderson, Diesel, Trashy Clothing, Comme des Garçons, CLDP, Carne Bollente, and Hiro Clark. It means Touko Laaksonen’s gleeful depictions of a homo-wonderland have been spilt across countless limited-edition t-shirts, vests, and novelty jockstraps – closing the Venn diagram on porn and fashion. Laaksonen’s work was dismissed as cheap smut for much of his career but it’s been posthumously reclaimed and preserved by fashion designers as an important part of the queer art canon, and so the idea that someone might want to cloak themselves in kitsch illustrations of swollen nipples and pendulous appendages has become significantly little less risqué.