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Lady Onna

THERE are many ways to describe Juliana, aka Lady Onna.

And the description you opt for may result in a reaction from polite interest through raised eyebrows to shock.

Former engineer Juliana - who prefers to be known as Lady Onna - is a fashion designer, artist, model, and rubber fetishist.

And lately she's also become known as the Isle of Wight mermaid, having donned a latex tail and gone for a swim in the sea off Seaview.

Those who fall at the shocked end of the spectrum of responses to Onna's unconventional lifestyle probably picture her as a rather threatening character - overtly sexual, perhaps a whip-wielding dominatrix and certainly not the sort of person you'd have over for tea.

But in the flesh, she is a polite, sweet, almost girlish woman who giggles easily, enjoys playing the host and who is about as unthreatening as Father Christmas.

Onna came to the Isle of Wight around six years ago to seek work as a composite engineer.

She had studied engineering at the University of Plymouth and worked as a sales engineer but she found that the employment opportunities on the Island were not what she had hoped for.

What's more she wasn't finding her chosen career path very inspiring so she decided to go for something different - about as radically different as you can get.

Onna had been interested in rubber from an early age. She recognised that she had a fetish - although she is uncomfortable with the seedy, anything goes' connotations of this word, preferring to describe her fascination with rubber as her sexuality.

She had also dabbled with dress designing and making and decided to combine these two interests with her knowledge of engineering to go into designing and making rubber clothing.

What's more, she decided to make rubber clothes - corsets, dresses, gloves etc - that can be worn in public.

"I love latex as a textile and I am trying to make it more accessible in the mainstream," she says.

"It photographs really well and looks stunning without looking tarty.

"I'm really trying to show a more couture, glamorous side of it that people wouldn't have otherwise have thought of."

Many of Onna's dresses are high-collared mandarin style, retailing for around £300.

In the early days of working with rubber it was a case of trial and error and once or twice Onna did run into difficulties.

"I've been caught out where I caught a dress on something and it ripped," she laughs.

"It was like oops, that was a bit too tight' but luckily it was at an event where it was quite acceptable!"

Onna began by opening a shop in Ryde, selling her designs but soon became noticed both nationally and internationally.

She had expanded into a second shop but eventually had to close the boutique as it was holding her back from her blossoming career as a designer, model and promoter.

Onna may have been inspired by her fetishism to work with rubber but she says her clothes largely appeal to a mainstream market.

In fact she has encountered some hostility from those within the fetish scene but she says that this is fine.

"I'm not seen from within the fetish scene as one of them which means I'm more accessible for ordinary people," she says.

That said, Onna is involved in the fetish scene and for a few years organised a fetish fair on the Isle of Wight as a sales and networking event.

But she abandoned it both because of other demands on her time and because of the behaviour of some of the people involved.

"The idea was for people to be able to shop and meet likeminded people but the event became distorted by people wanting to come out with the most extreme behaviour just to shock," she says.

"I don't like the word fetishist because there are extremes within any clique. I know that in this day and age we're supposed to be open-minded and tolerant of everything but some levels of tolerance are beyond me.

It's almost perceived that if you take on the label of fetishist you have to accept everything within it but I feel that there are extremes that it's just not acceptable to push onto people."

Although some people might find it hard to separate Onna and her creations from the seedier extremes of the fetish world, she is keen to emphasise that her work is intended to be fun and glamorous rather than offensive.

It's her goal to breakdown some of society's images of rubber, perhaps partly because she found it difficult to accept her own interest in the material when she was younger.

"I was worried there was something wrong with me," she says.

"I doubt anyone would think otherwise. People do ask me if I need therapy. Sometimes you do have to ask yourself if your fetish is doing you any good but luckily for me I've sorted out my balance."

Unsurprisingly she kept her interest secret from her parents for a number of years.

"I had a very formal and strict upbringing," she says. "When I was growing up I kept my interest in rubber a secret. I came out with it when I was at an event with them and I was dressed in rubber. It was like yey, look what I do!' "I thought it had better come from me before it came from someone else and they were fine with it because it wasn't an overtly rude' image."

Her family's acceptance of what she does, once they had got over their initial surprise, is another step for Onna on the road to making rubber more mainstream.

As well as having her designs increasingly in demand at mainstream events, such as premieres and fashion launches, she is set to host a television show later this year and next month a film crew will be trailing her to make a documentary.

What's more, her Isle of Wight mermaid attracted crowds of everyone from grandparents to small children to enjoy the spectacle.

"The mermaid is a very safe image for people to see," she says.

"People say mermaids are supposed to be topless but I made a top because I didn't want anyone to be offended by it.

"I went swimming in the sea at Seaview in August to test out a prototype tail I had made to wear for underwater modelling and promotional events.

"I was trained as a synchronised swimmer so it's easy for me to swim in it. People came down to watch with their grandchildren - there was a crowd of about 100 and it was a great atmosphere. Swimming as a mermaid was something I'd always wanted to do - it was a great excuse to get rubber out in public!"

10:36am Monday 24th March 2008

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