(With apologies to The New Yorker)

Yesterday’s New York Times Thursday Styles section had the Grey Lady showing lots of leg.

Raiding the Sex Shop, Eyes Wide Open

Fetish wear has woven itself into the fabric of fashion

 

“Hmm … I’ll have what she’s having,” I thought last week as I watched the Saint Laurent spring runway show online, the model’s ball-bearing hips sheathed in a black latex bodysuit.

A true believer, I lost no time tracking down its slick approximation, zipping myself into it and styling it with some vintage Chanel tweeds.

When I worked up the nerve to wear it, reactions were swift and incisive. “Is it Wang?” a friend asked brightly. “Vuitton?” another inquired.

Neither, actually, as Times reporter Ruth La Ferla (no relation to La Perla) notes.

As is happened, I had plucked that much-coveted swathe of rubber-and-raunch straight off the rack at Purple Passion, a cavelike emporium in Chelsea trading in leather-wrapped paddles, harnesses, spiked chokers and demonic masks that might have wandered off the set of “Eyes Wide Shut.”

Eyes Wide Shut? That’s the Times all over.

Then again, once the Times has its eyes wide open, the trend in question is just about shut.

Bringing up the rear: La Ferla’s final flourish.

At Tic Tac Toe, the Pink Pussycat’s sister store on West Fourth Street, jeweled handcuffs, pastel tutus and black patent pumps perched on four-inch platform soles attract a mostly female weekend clientele, a sales clerk said.

Among the shop’s more eye-catching attractions last week was a pair of thigh-high red vinyl boots, ringers for those that stalked the Dior runway last spring, but at $99, a bargain for sure.

Reader, I bought them.

Writer, of course you did.