Brooding Couture

Top Hat (2007) by J. Smith Esquire Image: Justin Smith At a recent exhibition opening at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, a flame-haired woman in a breathlessly tight green latex dress chatted with an statuesque man outfitted in tiny black shorts, knee-high, patent leather boots, and a cascading cape of sheer, ebony lace dotted with bursts of gold embroidery. The woman, aptly named The Baroness, is known in many fetish-fashion circles for her high-end latex clothing line. Th