ABSTRACT
The Relationship between Clothes and fetishism is diverse and complex. Fetishism of clothing may include ‘orthodox’ sexual fetishism that is orgasm from an article of clothing which becomes the fetish object. Fashion historians often use the term fetishism when they mean eroticism, and this slippage of terminology is very common to many discussions of fashion. The objectification of women’s appearance is now so central in Western culture that the relationship of women to fashion appears in itself to be fetishistic, or at least fixated on certain parts of the female body. The empirical methodology of David Kunzle’s book Fashion and Fetishism attempts to identify female fetishism by quoting journals and correspondence which describes the feelings of Victorian ladies who enjoyed tight-lacing of corsets. The thin erotic aesthetic is so central to the Western beauty ethos that for women, eating has become associated with sinning.
