Nylon (I) (1995)

I saw this Vivid feature in the '90s on the Playboy Channel, in soft-X version and remember vividly (pun intended) the look of Celeste in her lustrous pantyhose and stockings. That was the effect sought by filmmaker Nick Orleans, who has never been afraid to indulge his title fetish, even extending to his latest 2017 release "The Lingerie Effect".

What makes "Nylon" unusual is the seriousness of Orleans' approach, as he builds a confessional tale of Steven St. Croix talking to the camera as he sits smoking in a cafe, telling us about his nylon fetish which became a confession that disrupted his life as a successful still photographer.

That job only exacerbated his problem, as Orleans parades a luscious set of lingerie models before St. Croix's camera. But he can't resist staring at and hopefully getting to grope women all the time, on the street, at the cafe, you name it. Flashbacks detail his escapades, and a wailing saxophone score completes the slow, languorous mood.

With Celeste as his lover who abandons him because of his roving eye and perverse fetishism, the movie, shot in 35mm as one of Vivid's premiere projects (with Paul Thomas aboard as producer for his Cinnamon banner) reminded me in mood rather than content of the classic (but relatively unknown) Italian movie spotlighting Donatella Damiani "Lola's Secret", released a decade before. That soft-core thriller of a young boy captivated by a voluptuous older nanny was made by a pornographer who knew the art of misdirection -not laying on the theme or central issue with a trowel as Orleans tends to do but rather insinuating through atmosphere and visual immediacy his subliminal message.

So subtlety is absent from Nick's work, especially when it comes to a particular shot he repeats in different ways over a dozen times, namely the iconic legs-spreading beaver shot immortalized by Sharon Stone in Paul Verhoeven's thriller "Basic Instinct", which instantly made the journey-woman actress a belated superstar.

Even guest star Veronica Hart gives us that shot in a wonderful supporting stint as Steven's beleaguered shrink, trying out some fairly experimental tough love from a distance on the "I want to escape my obsession" anti-hero. Her very sexy dirty talk and shooting a beaver at him while he must keep his eyes closes merely drives him crazier, rather than curing him.

Along the way, Vivid fans were regaled with the sight of Rocco Siffredi's big dick servicing Celeste on a date that is as romantic as it is explicit. Rocco, whose gonzo philosophy of pornography has pretty much won the war and put this sort of Vivid feature (and the company itself) out of business, makes a lot of sense when he explains to Celeste that she should have given her lover Steven a break and indulged his proclivities, had she really truly loved him. That sets up a sentimental but effective ending, all designed to not merely explain but justify the auteur's oft-expressed fetish -and perhaps encourage the porn viewer to support it with their wallets.

True artist in this project has to be costume designer Isabelle Marie Marrion, whose fabulous array of undies is matched by a trio of perfect '60s Carnaby Street style dresses for a flashback sequence. Nick has returned to this fetish well umpteen times since, but never quite captured the obsession so well as in the in-your-face "Nylon".