Matisse Di Maggio and fashion’s appropriation of fetish references

One can never really tell ahead how a trivial occurrence can disclose a revelation. For French designer Matisse Di Maggio, for example, it was a ballet by Pina Bausch shown to her by her older sibling, that marked forever her experience as a queer kid. As she observed mesmerised the frantic, rough movements of the dancers gliding around the stage and interacting with the scenography, she came to realise that our bodies could offer infinite possibilities of expression, which were all worth delving into. Despite a BA and MA in Fashion at École Duperré Paris, making clothes that challenge any assumption about the body is just one of the instruments employed by Matisse to explore herself and make sense of the world. Dance, theatre, contortionism and performing arts have also become valuable ways to address issues of gender and sexual normativity, for, she says, “I am not a shy person, but I let my body do the talking, rather than saying things than don’t mean anything.”

“I don’t know if my work is rebellious, but just as a queer and trans person, showing my body and doing what I want with it, is a political act.” – Matisse Di Maggio

The body, its shapes and limits, are treated by the designer as her personal lab to test biopolitics. For her BA collection, Matisse explored the relationship between the fetishist and the fetish. Wrapping the person in black latex leotards, inflating their limbs dramatically, erasing their sexual features and making them anonymous through the use of skin-tight masks, her designs are the rubberised transposition of her long-time beliefs: “I don’t know if my work is rebellious, but just as a queer and trans person, showing my body and doing what I want with it, is a political act.” Crafted to be cherished and desired, as the purest distillate of the artist’s adoration, the “wearable objects” from the BA collection physically occupy the space that, she says, should be claimed back by queer people and fetishists: “It’s the first thing that you own and that I think we all have to re-own, because of all the frames society puts on us”. Fashion itself, declares Matisse, should be liberated from set standards as “it’s a way of expressing your gender, but shouldn’t be a tool to oppress people based on what they look like.”

“I don’t think my work will set the norm for the future, but to channel a state of in-betweenness is a way of questioning it.” – Matisse Di Maggio

Winking at the subversive work of performance artists such as Leigh Bowery and Cindy Sherman and their carnivalesque array of characters, the designer uses the body and its flamboyant alterations to question ideas of queerness and norm as polar opposites. It’s indeed that space of in-betweenness, the excitement and the risks that it may entail, that interests Matisse. Overcoming the dualism of female and male, dominant and submissive, pleasure and pain, fetish practices present the individual with something new and powerful. “I like the concept of the monster, theorised by one of my favourite philosophers, Georges Canguilhem. He says that the monster is a liminal figure ahead of the normal, that forges a new norm. I don’t think my work will set the norm for the future, but to channel a state of in-betweenness is a way of questioning it”.

“The most meaning I can bring into my designs, the better it is. I want them to be a commentary on our world, not something shallow.” – Matisse Di Maggio

If it sounds like a cerebral work of academic references, that’s because it is. Gender studies and sociology theories by Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway do not merely back up her research but represent a veritable source of inspiration. Be it investigating the corporeality of the Tanztheater of Pina Bausch or dissecting Roberto Esposito’s seminal text “Community, Immunity and Biopolitics”, Matisse approaches the creative process with the same method and rigour employed in an essay. “The most meaning I can bring into my designs, the better it is. I want them to be a commentary on our world, not something shallow.” Beyond her fascination for these theories, intellectualising a fetish collection was also a way of legitimising the subject at art school. Throughout her BA, Matisse had to face the resistance of her tutors, afraid that her work could degenerate into something vulgar. “Sexuality and gender can still represent a taboo in these universities. Even though the students are very open about that, teachers are often unprepared.” Despite the alleged openness of these environments, fetish practices are still dismissed as a form of deviance, or even overly sexualised. “Most of the times it’s not about sex, but erotic pleasure,” Matisse points out. Totally disinterested in reproduction, rejecting monogamy or fixed partners, and far from ending in a heterosexual intercourse, fetish erotism is often looked upon as a dirty practice that subverts sexual standards, assuming they exist. “Everybody has kinks, even people who consider themselves as heteronormative, but wearing a full latex suit somehow makes you look like more of a kink than the others.”

Even more problematic for the designer is the industry’s long history of appropriation of the genre. In the last couple of years, latex suits and extreme face coverings have re-emerged on the catwalks and red carpets. From Richard Quinn’s dominatrix, disguised under heavily embroidered floral dresses in FW 2021 and 2022, to the glossy, second skin masks that paraded down the Balenciaga Resort 2023, fetish references are either very explicit or integrated as simple style elements. In most cases, the narrative of the genre hasn’t evolved from its original grotesque caricature: “Fetishists are still portrayed with sombre music and dark tones, and this perpetuates the idea that fetish is something obscure.” The line between the celebration of a culture and the appropriation of its codes for the sake of a brand’s hype and company revenues is dangerously fine. The inconsiderate quotation of these codes brings with it a double standard between what can be tolerated in the show and scorned in real life. “The dichotomy is confusing: in the end, people who do it because they love it will be marginalised. When you are on the streets wearing full latex, the people who spit on the ground as you pass by, are the same who were clapping at any big brand’s show that uses these codes in a collection. I think you can still reference these cultures, as long as you find a way of giving back to their communities”.