There is nothing like a Dutch Dame – and that’s a promise!
Dutch Dame is a popular – and hard to miss – figure on the catwalks of major European fetish events. But this statuesque Amsterdam model is much more than just a ‘latex clotheshorse’. She’s also a lover of heavy rubber and hardcore bondage — which she expresses publicly through her creative partnership with top Dutch shibari and kinbaku artist Bob RopeMarks. Interview by Tony Mitchell. Banner picture by coJac
If, in the last few years, you’ve attended any of the major European events like Fetish Evolution, German Fetish Ball, BoundCon or Dominatrix, chances are you’ve seen Dutch Dame in action.
At 1.81m — a smidgeon under 6ft — without heels, she’s certainly hard to miss on the catwalk, where she’s frequently to be found modelling latex by designers like Holland’s Brigitte More. Brigitte — no shorty herself — has a habit of using Europe’s tallest fetish models in her shows. But even among Brigitte’s loyal band of leggy lovelies, Dutch Dame stands out.
It’s often assumed by a certain type of fetishist that the taller, slimmer and more ‘fashion shaped’ a fetish model is, the more likely she is to be an airhead who thinks S&M just means ‘standing and modelling’.
But Dutch Dame is no airhead, and while she’s undeniably fashion-friendly, her involvement in kink goes way deeper than just posing in latex.
Not only can she cut it on the catwalk; she’s also an avid rubber fetishist and hardcore bondage enthusiast. And as such, she has been able to turn her passion for restraint into a separate career as the onstage and offstage partner of Amsterdam’s famed expert in Japanese bondage, Bob RopeMarks.
Dutch Dame and I first met in person a couple of years ago, backstage at one of Holland’s Dominatrix parties. Fittingly, we got together at the most recent edition of that same weekend, in early November last year, for this interview.
She tells me she originally came to modelling through an interest in cosplay inspired by her love of Japanese anime. “I made my own costumes and thought it would be nice to have pictures to share on the internet. So that’s how I started to do shoots.”
As photographers got to know her they started asking for other genres. “I was young, 15-16,” she explains, “so it was like fashion, not fetish or kinky.”
So it all started, albeit innocently, with Lycra? “Lycra and other kinds of fabrics,” she laughs. “But I always liked it tight.” And she still does now.
“I like the silhouette you get in Lycra because it’s like rubber, it can be very tight, then you see all the silhouette and shape — it can be very sexy. And it’s perfect for bondage, for people who don’t want to go naked.”
No surprise, then, that she has a fondness for full-coverage Lycra zentai suits — another Japanese invention with cosplay roots.
‘One of the early photographers I worked with had quite a big latex collection, and this was the first time I’d felt it in my hands. Basically it was love at first sight’
“Yeah, I love those, they’re amazing. You can’t really see anything though you can breathe, of course. It’s a very special feeling to have that enclosure.”
Latex, on the other hand, was something the model first encountered in person only when, after turning legal age, she began posing for artistic nudes and body painting.
“One of the photographers I worked with then had quite a big latex collection, and this was the first time I’d felt it in my hands. I experienced it differently then from how I do now, but basically it was love at first sight. It was a very good shoot and it made me so happy.”
Soon after, she bought her first latex dress to wear privately at home, but gradually integrated it into more and more model shoots. By 2008 she was shooting mostly latex, and had started doing bondage and generally taking things “in a more fetish direction”.
Looking back on her first bondage shoot, she recalls it was “very cute, like cuffs, one piece of rope…”. In other words more symbolic than genuinely restraining.
She recalls that by then she already liked the way
bondage looked in pictures, although she couldn’t define exactly what attracted her to such imagery.
“So when a photographer mentioned it, I was like, ‘Yes, yes, let’s do that, that’s perfect!’ Looking back, it was innocent, basically. But it was really exciting and I was happy with that.”
Later, she did some bondage shoots that were more than just simply wrist ties. “But,” she adds, “it was never as extreme as when I first met Bob from RopeMarks. And since I met him… well it’s insane, it’s wonderful!”
She had seen images of Japanese bondage before meeting Bob but only came to appreciate the history and culture behind it when she began doing workshops with him. Doing her first suspension with him was “really amazing”.
She reckons the shows the couple do together have an important difference from traditional bondage performances because, she explains, “Bob is really fast.”
If you’ve ever seen a really fast rope artist doing a live show, you’ll know just what a difference that can make. Such performances elevate the sometimes sedate art of shibari to the level of a high-energy contact sport, with rigger and model engaged in a feverish and erotic power struggle.
When you see a performance like this (and among other exponents of speed I would include London’s Jon Blake, aka Nawashi Murakawa, and California’s Mykal Binds), you’re left in no doubt that what you’re watching is shibari’s erotically-motivated sibling, kinbaku, in action. It makes for great entertainment.
“For shows and fetish parties it has to be spectacular,” says Dutch Dame. “A show cannot be too long and it should have a lot of transition suspensions.
But, she explains, at bondage conventions, the audience really like to see how the tying is done. “And they like to see the untying part as well.”
To me, watching someone being untied and let down after a complex suspension is surplus to requirements, like watching actors taking off their costumes and make-up onstage at the end of a play. But I guess that’s the difference between education and entertainment.
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