The History of Mach2

This year Mach 2 celebrates 25 years. Mach 2 is a member’s only society set up to provide the opportunity for those that enjoy wearing rubber and latex to meet and socialise with fellow enthusiasts. Its main events are fetish weekends that takes place twice yearly with the Autumn event as the larger of the two. It includes a fashion show that is the focus of the event as well as a large trader market at which the attendees can purchase fetish related items to wear at the evening dinner and dance or just add to their general pervy wardrobe. It was preceded by The International Mackintosh Society (IMS) which began in 1986; Mach 2 evolved from the IMS in 1996. I have attended the events since the beginning and witnessed the changes over time in response the changing perception of the fetish scene that has gone from underground obscurity to overground visibility with a degree of familiarity as eccentric pervery.

Mach2 was a very different concept for its time , one that in essence has changed very little in the 25 years of its existence. The core members haven’t changed, a few new people join annually and very few have left or passed away. This gives it a unique place in the history and tradition of the fetish scene. It is because of this stable membership base that the organisation does not feel the need to advertise . In fact it currently has a problem in that it now has more members than can be accommodated in the hotel that is booked for the coming Autumn event so much so that for the first time a draw had to take place to secure attendance at the event, causing some bad feeling for people not included some of whom have been prominent members and key players in making sure the event has been successful over previous years.

In the mid 1980’s there was an explosion of clubs with fetish themes each with a slightly different take. SkinTwo in its original incarnation in Soho was one of the first to start the ball rolling. Later clubs like Der Putsch run by Steve Beech (1987), Torture Garden run by David Wood these were both oriented at youth. There was also a transvestite club in the Porchester Halls that involved a parade much like Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World. Tuppy Owens ran the Sex Maniacs Ball an innovative club aimed at people with physical disabilities following on from her Outsiders Club (1979), I set up Skin Two club with Tim Woodward in 1986. We held our first event at the Embassy Club in Bond Street. We set up Skin Two to be a marked departure from clubs like The IMS or Maitresse in Soho which we felt were old fashioned and locked in a time warp we wanted to “modernise” the scene and attract a new younger audience, and generally give the scene broader appeal . It was a step into the unknown as we didn’t know if this event would work. Fortunately it did and it was well attended and we went on to run it as a weekly club. None of these clubs were like Mach2 which has remained in its own time frozen zone. What distinguishes it is its largely ‘older ‘ middle aged clientele whilst the general fetish scene has over time become anti ageist and more inclusive. Their website provides a minimum amount of information as It is still very secretive about its activities. The members are very private people and don’t want their faces publicised apart from to other members. It is by definition an exclusive members club populated by people interested in dressing up in fetish clothing.

Its continuous appeal is that the members feel safe in a stable environment with effectively a closed community that has fixed expectations; its format has not really deviated from its original concept. It is a chance to meet up with the Mach2 family and catch up on other peoples lives. It provides the chance to socialise with people of similar interests in a familiar place who may be worried about how others view them. They are shielded from their “normal” society of family and friends who do still regard people who dress in rubber as strange or different. Going to clubs for many is a way of encountering something unfamiliar or unexpected, a sense of something new and chance to gaze at the wonderful textures of rubber, pvc and leather. Mach2 represents the opposite, a common ground , there is no anonymity as all members know each other and new recruits are assimilated into the family. It is also a place where transgression into sexualised behaviour can be conducted without criticism or delving into extreme. People can discuss their transgressive needs without fear of being judged. This is the strength of having a stable membership.

Mach 2 probably stands out as “old-fashioned ‘ within the fetish scene. It was very similar in set up to the Eccentric Fashion weekend that took place in Switzerland in the eighties and nineties. Some people attended both events. Members have aged along with the organisation, many are still original members. Some of the founding members broke away to form an alternative organisation called Flare in 2011. The original stimulus for forming Mach2 was as a breakaway organisation from The International Mackintosh Society set up in 1986 and as the name suggests focused specifically on the wearing of Mackintoshes. A somewhat restrictive obsessive dress code that Mac’s featured heavily in fashion shows and the attendees used the event to regale each other with their mono wardrobe. My overwhelming impression at the time was of the eccentric obsession with wearing these coats and often matching hats and gumboots or wellies which at the time seemed so old fashioned and locked in a time warp of the sixties. It was a throw back to the pages of Atomage, a magazine that was around at the time and would have been familiar to the members of the scene. Its proprietor was John Sutcliffe who was a pioneer on the scene. He died in 1987, not long after his premises were raided by the police. He was subsequently prosecuted for obscenity and his photos seized and destroyed which affected his health. Mach2 members purchased both his magazine and his complex leather and latex designs. It was thus not surprising that Mach2 operated in this underground way and still does to a large degree. The public gaze is not for them.

The website is deliberately obscure from public view. No mention is made of future events . You have to become a paid up member to receive that information in order that it remains a private club. It is not necessary to publicise the events as the event sells out to members within a very short space of time so that this year it became necessary to choose who could attend by random selection. It has not gone down well with everyone. The closed shop approach is also now used because of unwelcome observation by unwanted organisations. Kim of Rubbercult doesn’t broadcast in advance the venue of forthcoming events. This information is revealed to ticketholders only.

The original format for the Mach2 fashion show was supplied by companies like Hamilton Classics, Weathervain and Rainmac some of whom exhibited mac after mac in the Mackintosh society fashion show. My overriding memory of an event was of tons of different coloured macks coming down the catwalk. Lots of men would sit in the audience in their SBR’s which I later earned not only meant shiny black rubber but represented the material they were made from styrene-butadienne rubber and was also said to stand for South Bucks Rainwear. These men always took up the front row seats and they would come up to me afterwards and look at my own range of fashion infused latex and ask me if I made SBR’s (meaning raincoats) which of course I did not . I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about and even if I could I would at the time never have made them. I thought SBR’s outdated, disliked the smell of them and considered them distinctly lacking in any fashion aesthetic. I had my nose well and truly in the air. It had taken endless requests on the part of Jim Price to get me to attend. Jim Price was one of the founder members of IMS and then Mach2 and he took on the role of finding venues and organising the fashion show for many years. Jim was also a stalwart of the Kent and East Sussex Railway at Tenterden. He persuaded me to give it a go and participate. I originally agreed to go because the event was relatively local to me being held in Epping Forest and by then I was curious to know what it was about. Jim Price along with John and Ann Donaldson, Phil and Lorrie Flannery, David Pankhurst, Hadrian and Ruth Johnson and David Warne were instrumental in breaking away from the IMS to form Mach2. At the time there was concern among members of IMS about the way the Society was being run and a desire to move on from the restrictive dress codes that the Mackintosh Society insisted on imposing on its members.

Mach2 wanted to allow for the dressing up in catsuits , and outfits other than Mackintoshes. Members were balloted, a much more liberal dress code was agreed, and a more accountable committee structure was established with no one family unit being responsible for more than one activity associated with running the organisation. Mach2 is unique in that all the organisers are volunteers, no one except the venue and vendors makes any money from the event. Most fetish clubs have one or two owners and the aim is to make a profit as well as providing a platform for people to enjoy S/M related activities. This unique position of a lack of financial motive means it has progressed relatively unchanged as there is no incentive to change it. Membership is stable and people generally like the format. Although like all good, healthy families there are the occasional grumblers.

A dispute arose in 2010 when a new chairman took over, Trevor Brown, who announced his nominated position as the new chairman dressed in thigh length boots signifying a move for change to allow more relaxed dress rules that would potentially encompass some cross dressing which had hitherto been against the rules. Several members objected to this clear change in direction and they left the club, setting up an alternative club Flare . Flare operates with a different concept in that it is a smaller group of couples, membership total 30 who go away for four nights, often to country houses, with in house cooking and a more intimate , controlled setting spread by invitation only. Their objection may seem draconian but one has to view private clubs as places where the members dictate the terms. Clubs were more segregated into specific genres gay, transvestite, disco, etc. with a distinctive following. Mach2 was aimed at straight couples and Trevor’s presentation was a clear infringement of the rules at the time that had not been agreed by committee.

From then on under the stewardship of Keith Barker , (otherwise known as the photographer Keital who takes spectacular photographs of the scene) decide to ease the dress codes and allow for some cross dressing and the wearing of masks after dinner. It was a long way from its beginnings as the IMS, that focused on women dressing in latex, pvc and leather. In those early days men wore conventional fabric dinner suits , so it was left to the ladies to dress up. That attitude reflected the general male patriarchal view of objectifying women. Many men were so staid and uncomfortable about dressing up in latex outside of their homes and would rather see women dressed up which they were happy to finance and would specify what they should wear. It allowed for a voyeuristic world focusing on the female body. Culturally men had not been conditioned to dress up and express themselves by wearing clothing that was considered effeminate. Only outsiders like the youth subcultures of for instance mods and rockers, punks etc and aficionados of queer culture were comfortable in “peacock” dressing. It is only in recent years that men have become more adventurous in breaking out of their limited wardrobes and that has come about through the fashions for re-styled sportwear and workwear. It still took time for many men to allow themselves to dress in kinky gear and feel comfortable and not unfairly judged.

The scene hitherto was mainly supplied by companies like Sealwear and Atomage both old style companies that produced loose fitting unstylish clothes that members loved and felt comfortable in. I came along and tried to shake up that rigid adherence to a housewifey look of long full skirts frilly blouses or the traditional catsuit with reference to Emma Peel . My latex was extremely shiny and referenced fashion trends deviating from the popular perception of fetish. It was tight fitting, referenced fashion trends such as the peplum jacket and tailored like most women wear and stereotypical fetishwear. As many of the couples were older there was a reluctance to wear skin tight clothes and it took a lot of persuasion to get them to try something tight on but with a little perserverance and talc ….. I was not alone in selling to older clients. Other companies were encouraged to exhibit their wares at Mach2 and it is not just confined to rubber. S/MToys , Wigs, leather, pvc shoe companies. They have all over the years participated in the events companies like Bondinage, Rubberluv, Rubber Monkey, Triple X, Haywain shoes, House of Eros, Faye Sanders S & J, amongst others. The range and diversity of styles has expanded immeasurably.

The original format of the club was to take over a hotel, although sometimes it was not possible to have the entire hotel. Rooms would be set aside with Mach2 sharing with ordinary guests and in these circumstances everyone was told to not expose their pervy clothing in the corridors. In more recent years the organisation has taken over the entire hotel for the weekend, perhaps a converted stately home in places like Gloucestershire or Hampshire. This gives the participants the freedom to wander the grounds and live in latex for the entire weekend. It starts on a Friday evening with welcome drinks then a buffet and music . The focal point of the weekend is the fashion show that unconventionally takes place at 10am on the Saturday morning when club members volunteer to wear the participating designers’ clothes or their own purchased clothes . (Very similar to Eccentric Fashion) The show lasts until lunchtime and is narrated by one of the members who turns it into a fabulous, entertaining spectacle. It is also a chance for people like Cheryl Giddings to take to the catwalk in her wheelchair to show off that it’s not all for the able bodied. Professional models are not engaged. Recent changes split the fashion show into the conventional first have and a more risqué second half with masks and other bondage related material allowing anyone who find this “offensive” or ill placed to not attend that half. Bizarre though that may sound. There are strict rules that all members receive in a handout in their rooms at the beginning of the event. No nudity, no nipple exposure, no masks and no public play. Members will get told off if they break rules. This is to ensure the venue and its staff are comfortable and future bookings are not put at risk.

The afternoon is then devoted to the trade fair and a couple of other events, such as swimming in the pool in latex or a latex garment making demonstration, or a rope demonstration takes place and in recent years a dolls tea party. Having been involved with the club from the start I have witnessed many changes. It did take a long time to convince them that my latex was worth investing in. It has been an interesting journey for me selling to the members. Over the years I have got to know many of them well and in turn my own collections have been influenced by them in that I have, in some instances, tailored what I make to what I think they may like or what may suit a particular person. I have also been commissioned to design garments for specific people and knowing that they will want to wear something for the disco/dinner and dance in the evening. Garments must be designed to accommodate sitting down to eat which therefore makes different demands on the body to someone going to a club for the night where they will possibly spend the whole evening standing up. Many do have an outfit that they wear to dinner and then will pop off and change into something else for the rest of the evening or even several changes. Staying in a hotel allows for that indulgence. It is unique in that respect. (Being hotel-based is probably unique in the UK for an event of this size. But there are some big hotel-based, or partially-hotel-based fetish events, such as Fetish Factory’s Florida Fetish Weekend, Fetish Con, DomCon etc in the US, and various European weekends including BoundCon, Avantgardista and most recently Easter Fetish Meeting in Essen, etc making extensive or exclusive use of hotels.) These events follow on from an event run by Connie Slater Who set up her event Dressing For Pleasure in New Jersey in 1986 which I attended along with other companies. It was a smaller event than those that we have become familiar with like the SkinTwo ball which accommodated at its height 2000 spectacularly dressed people and Likewise torture Garden.

The event does resemble some events that have taken place and continue in Europe which I also attended. Two come to mind both in Switzerland, one was Eccentric Fashion run by Heinz and Anna Marie Gerbig and the other Boutique Fancy run by Felix. But these were money making organisations, and a showcase for their boutique. They would invite companies associated with the scene to participate in the fashion show and trade fair. One would have to pay to participate in the former and they would then take the opportunity to purchase or order some of one’s collection. Eccentric fashion was set in the splendid Swiss mountains. It is unknown if another event is to happen. Heinz also collected model trains and he would install one of these that could accommodate people and it was one of the ‘eccentric’ attractions of the event. Fancy’s weekend was more like that of Mach2 but with the couple in total control and it was purely a vehicle for selling what they sold, and therefore didn’t have the air of conviviality and warmth of Mach2.

An annual Mach2 magazine is published. The contents of which include photographs taken from the recent Gala’s fashion show or features on members in their homes or on location be that a holiday or party. Sometimes articles are included. It started as a black and white publication and now is in colour many of the photographs are taken by Keital and its quality has improved immensely. He records the event pictorially, a full archived history of the organisation some of which go into the magazine alongside submitted photos from members. As it is a private members club the photographs are not available for public consumption unless the relevant parties agree to this. It is only sent out to members and is basically a record of the previous years ‘events. The magazine resembles The Rubberist or Dressing For Pleasure but then what all these magazines share is Keital who seems to be the main photographer of all the participants. It is not unlike ID magazine the fetish subcultural equivalent that featured ordinary people in their domestic or suburban street settings wearing their own fetish clothing as opposed to being worn by a professional model, a record of lived reality.

It is an amazing feat that Mach 2 has achieved ; over the years finding a venue to accommodate up to 200 people at a suitable, understanding hotel who may have staff who have never been exposed to people dressed like this before , getting commitment from the participants 6 months in advance, organising a fashion show and trade fair and all the other associated paraphernalia in putting the event together by volunteers who have responsibility for the event making sure the rules are enforced by the committee so that they do not fall out with the establishment as they may wish to return to the same venue the following year, Finally making sure they operate within the budget that comes out of the membership funds as well as the costs of the weekend stay.

It will continue to have a special place on the fetish scene because it provides something unique, but Mach2 can only survive for as long as there are volunteers to organize it. Which generally has meant that those people are retired and have the time to put in the work. There is no other weekend event in the UK of this kind . Tim Woodward has in the past few years started similar things under the Chardmore Society brand. There are other clubs are open to the general public and do not require prior membership to attend. Mach2 is much like the Freemasons… a private club. There is some concern that the ageing population of the members means that the club will have a limited lifespan left. It is down to the club to recruit younger people who are in tune with its format. There are plenty of other clubs like Torture Garden who offer a more contemporary take on fetish themed nights. Reflecting a boom in subcultural activity. The current Chairperson is a woman Paula Deeming, the first in the history of the club who may again take the club in a new direction and ensure its future survival. Mach2 has gone from relative obscurity to being a more transgressive club, more European in its flavour but at the same time anachronistic in its appeal to the young.

The views of this article are that of the author and may not represent the views of the Mach2 society .