Nicholas Maronese
Editor-in-Chief
I’m pressed up against the edge of the chest-height stage, the pulsing house music thumping through the floor, the bright white lights shining down on me.
On my right, a guy wearing purple sleeves with frilly white cuffs bobs his head – he’s wearing a gilded gold crown – to the beat. I can tell he, like me, is enjoying taking in the sights and sounds – corsetclad dominatrixes and the crack of riding crops against backsides, respectively.
I wonder, though, whether he’s as distracted as I am by the intoxicating scent of fresh-cut leather. It overwhelms my nostrils.
If you haven’t yet guessed, I’m not at LG Fashion Week – I’m at Northbound Leather’s “Vanilla?” fashion show and party, Oct. 23. It’s a different kind of fashion show.
His outfit catches my eye, but only for a second. My gaze is instead drawn back to the model strutting – er, make that crawling on her knees – on the runway. The leather-clad brunette picks wadded dollar bills up off the stage and puts them in her mouth, slowly chasing the tall, broad-shouldered man who’s been very deliberately scattering the money around.
As they eventually make their way off stage, another kinky television clip sourced from mainstream culture plays, the kind of clip that’s supposed to inspire you to think about the titular question and start a debate in your head as to where the boundaries between kinky and normal lie.
I ponder the thought myself as the scene, from the 1984 comedy Police Academy, begins to roll. Two inept cadets rush into “The Blue Oyster” bar only to find themselves surrounded by a set of intimidating
large, burly men draped in leather vests and chaps. They’re soon waltzing with the bears, a look of horror on their faces.
Seconds later, the scene is reenacted live in front of me, though of course the officers’ uniforms are now made of leather, as are their tight-fitting, red-striped jodhpurs. One of the bar brawlers holds his hands up high, dangling a pair of donuts over the cadets’ heads – then stops his teasing and, propping the donut on top of his cock, lets them nibble away.
The models – the men and the women – look different, somehow, from last year’s. The choreography is spot-on, but it seems less rigid, more fun; the attitude is less serious, more silly. They’re all generally attractive, as they were last year, but somehow more real.
As the show goes on, we’re introduced to a Secretary-inspired chaotic office scene; a sexy cane- wielding schoolmarm with a steel gaze; and a Boy Scout troop – in red leather sashes, caps and thongs, of course.
At the show’s end, midnight, Northbound Leather’s owner George Giaouris and his wife Anna arrive on stage, greeted by deafen- ing applause. It’s then Giaouris explains what I couldn’t quite place about the models – they’re not models.
He explains that an actual dominatrix coordinated the event; the participants were chosen from the community. They’re you, he tells the audience; they’re us.
“I’m not preaching to the perverted,” he concludes. “This show is a celebration. Let’s celebrate who the fuck we are!”
As a fashion show, “Vanilla?” was an excellent showcase for some of Northbound’s best pieces; as a performance, it was silly-yet-sexy. As a celebration, it was absolutely inspiring. I move away from the stage,
beaming and thoroughly impressed. Now I’m bobbing my head, too, to the music blaring from the speakers. I head toward the dungeon, a silly-sexy smile on my face; it’s Northbound Leather’s “Vanilla?” after all, and the party has just begun.
