Although rubberwear is in the middle of a media

thomas sabo pendants sale uk renaissance, its journey from Brazilian rainforests to secretive dungeons and now

centre stage has been 200 years in the making. Though natural rubber latex has come to be associated with futurism

and technology, its origins are ancient and organic. Latex is a milky fluid that oozes from over 20,000 plant species

after tissue injury.

The sap-like substance, which coagulates swarovski crystal sale uk

and hardens to form an elastic and waterproof mass, is tapped by making careful incisions with small blades. The New

York-based latex designer known as The Baroness tells BBC Designed: “People often mistake latex for PVC, and think

of it as shiny, tight, sexy and cheap. But natural rubber latex is completely vegan, sustainable, fragile and

difficult to work with”.

Use of natural rubber dates back to

vivienne westwood earrings sale uk Mesoamerica in 1600 BC, in the Maya, Aztec and Olmec cultures (Olmec is an

Aztec word, meaning “rubber people”). South America remained the main source of latex until 1876, when Henry

Wickham, in an act of botanical piracy, smuggled 70,000 Amazonian rubber tree seeds out of Brazil and into England.

These seedlings eventually made their way to more compatible climates in India, Sri Lanka,

Indonesia and Malaysia, vivienne

westwood necklace sale uk countries that today rank among the largest producers of natural rubber. During the

industrial revolution, latex became a hugely valuable colonial resource. To tap these vast reserves, horrifically

violent techniques were imposed on forced labourers in the Brazilian Amazon and King Leopold’s Congo, where failure

to meet impossible quotas was punished with mutilation and sometimes death.