R&M Leathers Is Taking Kinkwear To Newer (& Poppier) Heights

If you caught Olivia Rodrigo on the Guts tour, chances are you saw her tearing up the stage in a two-piece leather set covered with grommets and studs. She stuck to a tried-and-true outfit formula for her massive festival and stadium sets, wearing the same exact pieces in purple, red, and black, hammering home a signature look and, most importantly, staying comfortable. How can leather be considered cozy for a 90-minute set, you ask? Ruby Mariani of R&M Leathers, the designer behind these looks, prides herself on just that: “A lot of the techniques we use at R&M… I kind of made up in terms of making them work with the body.”

Mariani’s fascination with the body and leather started in the Western Australian city of Perth, where her musician dad brought her to his rock gigs as a child. She pored over materials like a rock dictionary with alphabetized terms in the community (peroxide hair, fringe) and became obsessed with the “look” before she fell for the music. This fascination led her to study fine art and fashion at school, where she says she taught herself how to mold leather. She made the leap across several ponds to end up in London, where she started interning for a fetish shoemaker. The commitment to bespoke looks that acted as a second skin — and, yes, included leather — had her hooked. “It’s a bit like woodworking. It’s something you can do yourself, and I like that.”

Her interest in leather led her to study biker and BDSM cultures, which are typically associated with a tougher, more intense look. Mariani’s goal — which she has successfully achieved — was to bring a feminine, softer edge to leatherwear, making leather bras, but also frillier pieces. The bespoke, demi-couture nature of her practice has led her to become a mainstay for the pop girls of today who want the sweet-meets-severe look while also keeping everything in place as they twirl and jump on stage. She collaborated on a leather apron with Gabbriette, dressed Julia Fox and Dua Lipa, and created several shorts for the legendary look Charli XCX honed for the Brat tour.

Her love for fashion and music have made her the ideal designer for people like Addison Rae (whom Mariani counts as a customer), and she’s always down to dress someone that might not seem like a “great fit” at first. The challenge in not only draping leather like satin but also expanding her universe is what keeps her going, like her most recent Valentine’s Day collection, which saw her make a lambskin maid minidress, a marabou-and-leather bodysuit (with no bra cup, by the way), and a studded thong with a heart on the front. Everything is handmade in her studio, resulting in longer lead times and higher prices, but she wouldn’t change it for the world: “People can appreciate the craftsmanship as well as the time. They take a really long time.”

She dialed in from her sunny London studio to talk about her early inspirations; blending her worlds of rock, punk, and couture; and teaching young designers the importance of slow fashion.

Tell me about discovering the fashion language of kinkwear.

I actually got into it through making. I started working with this fetish shoemaker when I moved to London. I liked the fact that they made everything from scratch. There are not a lot of artisanal skills, and they’re not as cherished. They’re a dying art, but where it is still really prevalent is in fetish and kink because it’s custom. It would be the same if someone was wanting a custom suit, but in fetish, people want something specific, they want it handmade, they want it custom. It’s couture, to be honest, but in a very different way. Obviously, there’s the sexual element, but people wear it to go clubbing and performing, so there’s that crossover. From there, I became obsessed with a lot of the ’60s and ’70s makers of the time.

You’ve brought it to a pop-culture level by taking it out of the boudoir and the club. You’ve made pieces for Olivia Rodrigo and Charli XCX. How was that process?

There’s another element which is really important to me: There’s a little softness with the pieces. Visually, BDSM and rock and roll can seem quite tough, but my silhouettes and a lot of the trims are very feminine. It’s quite soft. I like it to feel like it’s molded and close to the body, but also not vulgar. Working with those people, generally, they’d express interest in existing pieces, and then we’d customize it based on body shape or color. Charli wears a lot of our stuff. She’s got one style of shorts in silver, black, with studs, and one with chains. It’s become her signature.

She, in my opinion, has one of the best pop star looks. I’ve been thinking about it a lot because there are a lot of teams, stylists, and thoughts that go into these pop stars, but hers feels like her. She wears different things on the stage, but I don’t think it feels uncomfortable. That’s what makes it cool. That’s why it was iconic.

I love the idea of you making second-skin pieces. That’s the great thing about working with leather: the longer you wear it, the better it will fit. Charli just re-wore one of your pieces for The Moment premiere.

I know. It’s so good.

On your latest collection, Leather in Love, you worked with stylist Gerry O’Kane, whom I love.

I’m so happy with it. I always work with Gerry because he gets the sexy, he gets the camp. There’s both of those things, but in the end, it comes out sleek. I always have the best time with him.

Leather can make people feel too serious sometimes, but there’s a level of frivolity and sweetness, which with such a heavy material maybe doesn’t come all the time. With the last collection… We’ve been talking about how it was the most successful collection to work on as a team. We had a really specific brief. It’s kind of halfway lingerie, our clothing. Our best time of year is Valentine’s, so we thought, “Let’s try and push that theme.” We researched classic greeting cards and classic calendars, real iconic bits. A lot of our catalog has been useful because we have a lot of hearts and lace.

I like vintage, but I think it’s hard to make vintage contemporary and not make it look too referential. We always try to walk both of those lines. I spoke with Gerry about props, which was really important. I said I wanted a teddy bear because I feel like that’s a vintage Valentine’s trope, plus chocolate boxes. I was trying to level out the really sexy, tiny clothes with a little bit of fun. We did [the campaign] in Paris, so that also made it quite fun. Lydia is my model I always work with. She’s incredible. That is a wig as well. That wig really made it.

I love the furry bits you had in the collection too.

That one is my favorite look. We pushed that one out because at the end of the day, it’s hard to exist in fashion because you do need commercial items. If you’re going to go for it in an editorial, you may as well just do the fluffy catsuit that has pom-poms and no bust. And we went for it.

Tell me about making your graphic T-shirts and keeping that in the universe of R&M.

The idea of the shirt was based on half rock and roll, half biker, but also the legacy of gay bar T-shirts, like the Mineshaft one Freddie Mercury had. Some of them have pictures of people, but some of them were just strong graphics. I thought, “That’s the legacy I’m really inspired by: leather makers.” We made a few shirts and I thought, “Why would someone want a T-shirt?” But they actually do. People like the branding.

Not everyone’s going to wear a leather bra, and the T-shirt is a way for them to feel included. I have a lot of fun with the shirts. Every season, I’ll work with local people. I used to play in punk bands, so people that were around that scene will have fun with the graphics. I’ve seen them in such random places before. They’ve traveled far. I’ve seen them out in clubs, but people have worn them in music videos and even in a TV show.

What girls are you loving right now that you would want to dress?

To be honest, my personal music interest is so in the past. I’ve dressed Amy [Taylor] from Amyl and the Sniffers. She’s the one. I’d love to create something for a legacy rocker, someone from back in the day. Someone like Blondie, Cher… people that have really strong looks. One of my friends plays in an all-girl metal band from the ’80s called Girlschool, and she wears the bits and pieces sometimes.

The symbolism of biker jackets or studs is not really wedded as much to subculture as it used to be. Now it’s pretty homogenous with a lot of cultures and high fashion. It’s always fun to have a brief. Dressing someone that’s got a completely different style to me is a challenge, and I kind of like that.

I love when I see a brand take on a client I wouldn’t expect.

I think that is the goal. I know it’s a specific thing, but maybe the attraction is not based so much on it being connected to a subculture or being BDSM-related. It’ is just a nice, beautiful piece, and people can appreciate the craftsmanship as well as the time. They take a really long time.

I love the human aspect to these pieces. I also think having such a specific point of view allows so many different people to come into the world.

Some people will probably be offended by what I do, but there’s other people that are going to be obsessed. I’m not here to make a homogenous product for everybody. You don’t even have to appreciate it in terms of something you’d want to wear. Seeing them in real life, they have a real sculptural tactility, and that’s also really appealing.

What do you hope for the future of your brand?

I’ve not done things like shows or presentations. We’ve done it on our own terms with seasons. They’re not that seasonal, but my plan is to do some kind of collection, which would maybe be presented in some way.

I think the most important thing is to just keep doing it on your own terms. I love the punk element to it: that you do the fashion thing your way and reject it in other ways.

I’ve got a good team. A lot of people come from uni, they will intern, and I really want to employ them. A lot of the time they just stay on. I’d like to show them that you have to be obsessed with the craft. You have to have patience, and if you do, it sticks. A lot of people start their own brands now, but if you want to be really good at something, you need to be obsessed. I’ve got an obsessiveness with the things I’m interested in and the culture that goes around it, and that always informs it. I do everything the long, slow, considered way, which can be quite frustrating at times, but then you’re never meeting halfway on what you actually want to do.