LONDON — Not all superheroes wear capes. And no one wears satin or stretchy nylon pantyhose today. The modern crime-fighter prefers tailored Leather, often a little fuzzy, often handmade by a pair of former club kids.

Patrick Whitaker and Keir Malem, both 57, founded Whitaker Malem, their specialist leather brand, in 1988. They had started dating a few years earlier when Mr Whitaker was studying at Central Saint Martins and that fashion students used nightclubs as much as their college assignments to experiment with style. Nightlife was the social media of the time.

Fashion buyers were enthusiastic about Mr. Whitaker’s latest student collection, so the pair set up their business – first as a luxury fashion label, then as costume designers for music videos, stage and l ‘screen. They call themselves ‘pop artisans’ and are celebrated for their distinctive cutting, joining and wet casting of rawhides, with custom orders costing an average of 8,000 pounds ($9,270), but the creations of movies and specialized videos often require a lot more.

Their work has become part of the pop culture canon: they created looks for “Aquaman”, Batman in “The Dark Knight”, “Captain America: The First Avenger” and “Wonder Woman”. For the latter, in 2017, they not only created the red, bronze and blue bodysuit of Diana Prince’s alter ego, they also dressed her Amazon sisters.

“We were responsible for 160 suits,” Mr. Whitaker said. “It took a year. Every project takes time. ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ took four months from first sketch to final costume.

The pair have collaborated with famed costume designer Kym Barrett on numerous productions, including “Aquaman” and the 2012 sci-fi “Cloud Atlas.”

“I often design costumes on my projects to showcase their design and construction skills,” Ms Barrett wrote in an email. “They combine sophisticated technical processes with a sensual shape, finished with delicate coloring and intricate detailing. The pieces are protective, durable for action and incredibly sexy.

In addition to their Hollywood credits, Whitaker and Malem also work on exhibitions and have collaborated regularly with British artist Allen Jones, known for his fetishized sculptures of female forms as furniture, and with Caroline Darke, trustee of the Museum of Leathercraft in Northampton. . , England, who in 2000 commissioned a piece of a dissected male torso for the museum’s permanent collection.

“They are incredible innovators as well as absolute perfectionists,” Ms. Darke said. “I first encountered them about 40 years ago when they were developing the art of wet molded leather for fashion. Previously, it was only used for bowls and other vessels, and they took it to extremes, creating modern body shapes.

As Ms. Barrett mentioned, and as Mr. Jones clearly appreciates, the Whitaker Malem leather look is not PG-13. In a world where nipples are a social media trigger, both Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Malem take the details of the areola and belly button to heart. For “The Nudes Room” at the Christian Louboutin 2020 exhibition at the Palais de la Porte Dorée in Paris, their models left nothing to the imagination. More explicit: the recent “Phallus Belt” sculptures with priapic elements, which certainly won’t be part of the final cut of a DC or Marvel movie anytime soon.

“Second Skins”

It was the promise of sex-positive armor that brought high-profile figures to Whitaker Malem. Megan Thee Stallion wore a black pierced bodysuit at Glastonbury last year and David LaChapelle photographed Doja Cat in a pink “Labia” bustier (which looked like this) for the artwork for her 2021 “Planet Her” album.

Rapper Ojay Morgan, aka Zebra Katz, wore a black gladiator-style two-piece outfit during his recent “Less is Moor” tour. “I felt and looked like a god, which was the point,” Mr Morgan wrote in an email. “They create second skins that make you feel absolutely invincible.”

But Coliseum-appropriate styles are hallmarks for Whitaker Malem: They created a gold version for Alexander McQueen’s first Givenchy couture show in 1997 and another for Brad Pitt in “Troy.”

Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Malem live and work in a purpose-built studio in East London’s Hackney, and rarely allow anyone – other than a recently graduated part-time stylist from Central Saint Martins – to help in a way that provides access to their full process. Although they are happy to talk about method, their expertise and artistic eye are intangible elements of the final result.

“We get a 3D body scan of the actor and then it’s CNC machined out of a certain density of foam that we like to work with,” Whitaker said, referring to CNC machining by computer. The men use a blade to refine the shape of the foam before applying the leather using the wet molding process and then allowing it to dry, producing permanent contours in the skin.

“Our fit is 90% cut, 10% block and wet mold,” Mr. Whitaker said. “No one else can match the way we sew raw edge.”

another universe

Anyone who has tried to stick a needle in leather would recognize the skills of Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Malem.

“We’re really couture,” Mr. Whitaker said. “We do all the tinting and metallization applications in our studio. I sew it, and Keir gilds it by hand, like you would a Georgian mirror. When you get close to it, it looks better than silver plating. The silhouette is the most important thing for the film, then the color and the way the light hits it.

The men were on a college lecture tour in the United States in early March, talking about their inspirations, collaborations and history, and also detailing how fundamental leather is to their craft. “We use leather because of its inherent qualities,” Mr. Malem said. “We cut it and use sewing instead of boning to create shape. It gives rigidity, never frays. But the work is intense, and we can only make about ten high-end unique pieces per year.

He said they only work with the shoulder parts of the skins, which arrive in their natural biscuit color from their sole supplier.

The men say they haven’t considered vegan alternatives and don’t see the need to: “Ninety-nine percent of the world’s leather is a co-product of the meat industry,” Mr. Whitaker said. “Twenty percent of farmed skins are discarded in the United States. Nothing we do goes into commercial production. There is no inventory.

Early Whitaker Malem designs in pristine condition appear on auction sites from time to time. Online marketplace 1st Dibs recently posted a listing for a $750 patent leather vest, but movie-related artwork and pieces regularly sell for significantly more. In 2021, for example, “Attendant,” a sculpture they collaborated on with Allan Jones, sold for $64,899 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

“I remember seeing our work in action films in the 1990s, and the costume designers claimed they made them,” Mr. Whitaker said. “But they had just bought them from a store we were selling in LA Cher and Janet Jackson was buying them there as well.”

Today, people order parts directly. When Burberry was dressing Bella Hadid for the 2022 Met Gala in New York, the house’s creative director at the time, Riccardo Tisci, commissioned her to wear a leather corset as part of her ensemble. They also worked with Balenciaga and Charles Jeffrey.

But “for years we flew under the radar,” Mr. Whitaker said. “No one was doing what we were doing.” The diversification of art and fashion towards Marvel and DC movies took them to another universe and to another level.

While imitators make them bristle, they live for their chosen medium, obsessing over fashion’s impact on movies, citing Paco Rabanne’s work on “Barbarella” in 1968 and Azzedine Alaïa’s outfits for Grace Jones in the 1985 James Bond release “A View to a Kill”. ” as examples of featured garments.

They still love dressing Madonna for “Die Another Day” in 2002. “You won’t have a lesbian fencing instructor in a Bond movie now,” Mr Malem said.

Mr Whitaker said the duo would like to “work with the contemporary equivalent of Fellini, Pasolini or Ken Russell, but they don’t exist. Only blockbuster movies can afford to bring people like us in and mess around and do what we do.