The Complete Reprint of Exotique / The First 36 Issues 1951-1957. Three-volume Taschen box set. Foreword by Kim Christy. Köln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag , 1998. Hardcover. First Edition. Collectible. Near Fine.
A complete, high-quality Taschen reprint of the first 36 issues of Exotique. A new publication of the bizarre and the unusual in a three-volume set. Includes all magazine covers, photo features, some of the most famous Gene Bilbrew and Eric Stanton drawings, and artwork, and, of course, many photographs of early fetish models such as Tana Louise and Bettie Page.
Leonard Burtmann's Exotique, a new publication of the bizarre and the unusual is, in essence, the ultimate catalog of 1950s underground fetish fashion. Published under the Burmel Publishing Company imprint in New York, Exotique focused on femdom and transvestism fantasies, with statuesque leather and latex-clad powerful women dominating males often depicted as slaves and sissies. Dubbed 'the publication of Femmes, Fiction and Future Fashion,' Exotique basically reconstructed the pin-up as a dominatrix and fetish queen, an approach not unproblematic in the McCarthy-era as Olga gets to know in the last installment of Gene Bilbrew's Mistress : 'Excuse this intrusion Olga, but as of now your code name "Goddess" and all activities here at Bizarre Minor have come to an end! You will no longer host groups of fetish minded people and recruit them to become communist agents!!...'
This box set reprint sells for hardly more than one of the original magazine back issues.