EXOTIQUE - The first 36 issues,1951-57. [3vols HB,Boxed.]

German,3 HB vols+slipcase,1st edn thus. [English in body of book.] MINT/MINT.Wrapped+protected from day of issue/purchase.Glossy,pictorial colour decorated boards and spines/backstrips,with pictorial colour decorated endpapers,and colour illustrated box.Though the fore-word is in German and French as well as English,the text thereafter is English.Profuse b/w photographs,b/w illus,b/w strip cartoons throughout the 3 vols.
A fresh subculture of the exotic was gathering feverishly in the night.
Hollywood and in particular the film noir of the late forties and fifties had re-invented the position of women and female fashion in popular culture.Femme fatales like Rita Hayworth,Barbara Stanwyck or Jane Greer deployed revealing clothes and jewellery to provoke and seduce weak-willed men into their illegal,perverse schemes. Women began to move towards a new look in fashion, introduced by Christian Dior,that made their femininity visible,and by implication gave them power over men. Underwear became more complex and interesting - garter belts,waist cinchers,silk stockings,high heels - it was all buckled,laced and strapped together,exaggerating the figure while turning up the heat when the time came to disrobe.
Dressing up and stripping off were all part of the process, and the more elaborate and ritualistic it was,the more sensual and exciting.Enter Leonard Burtman,scientist and keen amateur photographer,who was instrumental in the discovery of the 'photo-strobe'.Unluckily he had been in the Californian desert during A-bomb tests in the mid 40's and his proximity to the radio-active fallout had left him sterile.Disillusioned,he signed off the Government payroll, channelling all his energy into photography and publishing.
Thus his digest format photo-magazine Exotique was born out of his publishing company.
Issue One appeared in 1951,and already the blueprint was in place.Exotique was a brilliant combination of science,art, eccentricity and uninhibited lust.Only a few photographers working within the field of the pin-up were really bringing the,more fetishistic elements to the foreground.
Irving Klaw,his sister Paula,and Bunny Yeager were the pioneers of bondage and fantasy sequences that were often collected in book form a la Exotique.
Klaws photography of Betty Page created the first official pin-up of the bondage scene,along with Betty's numerous willing collaborators in leather,rope and hand-cuffs.The consumers of these pin-up books were constantly requesting 'damsels in distress' shots,they wanted to see models posing as captives,vulnerable,bound and gagged and abandoned,blindfolded and left in painful or contorted physical positions. Fetishism was developing, and no longer hidden under the floorboards.
Exotique,"the digest of of the bizarre and unusual",along with other underground magazines was distributed on a small-scale,but like a fire it spread into Times Square and from there to other outlets along the East Coast.Exotique was Burtman's labour of love.He was committed to transforming his fetishes into an art form through photographs and text.The central vision of Exotique and Burtman's desires was of the imposing dominatrix,standing tall in razor-sharp stilettos,garters,stockings,a ludicrously tight corset,and long leather gloves.The complete reprint, in full,of the first 36 issues.
Vol 1,issues 1-11.Suspenders,stilettos,some famous faces like Betty Page and Brandee Kase plus strip cartoons, suspenders galore,the highest heels ever,the tightest corsets are all here in the first book.
Vol 2,issues 12-24,continues in the same vein of leather with more high heels,boots,gloves,corsets and photographs,cartoons and drawings of dominatrices in their satin and rubber outfits.
Vol 3,issues 25-36 completes the set of three. Each volume measures 5" x 8.50" x 2" thick.The boxed set measures 5.50" x 5.50" x 5.50".FOR ADULTS ONLY.
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