Wetlook


"Wetlook" describes the appearance of fabric which is shiny and thus appears to be wet. It may also describe the act of getting wet while wearing clothes, and enjoyment of doing so or of watching others do so, as a form of sexual excitement.

As sexual stimuli

suggested that wetlook clothing functions as a kind of superskin, enhancing the visual and tactile qualities of shininess and tightness. He offered the 1970s-style advice that if your lover “likes you to look like a cross between a snake and a seal, wear what he gives you.
For Desmond Morris, water on the skin is seen as mimicking the sweat of sexual arousal.

Fashion and pop

The 1960s success of the Merseybeat saw wetlook pvc coats coming down from Liverpool to enter the London fashion scene. A few decades later, a pop Ladette might feel ambivalent to find herself posing in a pvc catsuit.

Classical prototypes