Charles Guyette

Charles Guyette (August 14, 1902 – June, 1976) was a pioneer of fetish style, the first person in the United States to produce and distribute fetish art, and regarded as the mail-order predecessor of Irving Klaw. Later known as the “G-String King,” he is best remembered for his bizarre (i.e., fetish) photographs, some of which featured sadomasochistic content.

Biography

Guyette worked as an innovative burlesque costumer and dealer in theatrical accessories, providing vintage corsets, opera gloves, custom-made fetish boots, and, most famously, G-strings. Employed by National Police Gazette editor, Edythe Farrell, he later provided costumes, high heel shoes and boots, and occasionally photographs for publisher Robert Harrison, known for pin-up magazines such as Wink, Titter, Beauty Parade, Whisper, and Eyeful. He was also important in early fetish community social circles of the day and in the careers of John Willie and Irving Klaw. Guyette was a fetish fashion pioneer.

In 1935, Guyette went to federal prison, becoming the first martyr of fetish art history. Later, he operated under a series of aliases and owned a costume shop on West 45th Street in New York City. Largely uncredited in his lifetime, Guyette influenced key fetish art innovators, including Irving Klaw, John Willie, Eric Stanton, and Leonard Burtman. The subject of a book tribute, Charles Guyette: Godfather of American Art, he is also featured in the independent biopic on Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston. The film Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, written and directed by Angela Robinson, features Guyette as the costumer for Wonder Woman’s real-life inspiration, Olive Byrne. Guyette is played by actor JJ Feild.

See also

Irving Klaw

John Willie

Eric Stanton

Gene Bilbrew

Bettie Page

Dita Von Teese

Fetish fashion

References

Further reading

Charles Guyette: Godfather of American Fetish Art [*Cream Paper Edition*] by Richard Pérez Seves. New York: FetHistory, 2019. ISBN 978-1077679689

Eric Stanton & the History of the Bizarre Underground by Richard Pérez Seves. Atglen: Schiffer Publishing, 2018. ISBN 978-0764355424

Possibilities: The Photographs of John Willie edited by J.B. Rund. New York: Bélier Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0914646495

The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline edited by J.B. Rund.(Second Edition, Revised & Enlarged) New York: Bélier Press, 1999. ISBN 0-914646-48-6

Charles Guyette’s High Heeled Shoes: Photographs circa 1940 by George Monk. Amazon Digital Services (Kindle), 2014. ASIN B00J0HAMNO

The Development of Sadomasochism as a Cultural Style in the Twentieth-Century United States (PhD dissertation) by Robert V. Bienvenu II. Indiana: Indiana University, 1998.

External links

Pérez Seves, Richard (n.d.). “FetHistory”. fethistory.blogspot.com. Retrieved October 12, 2017.

Robinson, Angela (n.d.). “Professor Marston & the Wonder Women”. imdb.com. Retrieved October 12, 2017.

Mitchell, Tony (2018). “Eric Stanton and the History of the Bizarre Underground”. The Fetishistas. Archived from the original on December 5, 2018. Retrieved December 4, 2018.