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I first discovered toe socks while browsing my old Tumblr feed (back before the BIG FETISH BAN) and came across a photo that still sticks so clearly in my mind. A rubberised gimp lay on a sheet of black latex with his entire body covered head-to-toe in tight black latex. My interest (and excitement) peaked when I discovered his feet looked to be dipped in a perfectly fitting material of latex with his toes perfectly outlined.
From there, I was always intrigued as I wouldn’t call myself a foot fetishist personally but the image still remains ingrained within my brain. The first time I happened to try on some latex toe socks an ex-partner bought some for my birthday, and I was over the moon. In fact, although this was back in 2015, I still have these same socks today. I think they may potentially be the oldest piece of gear I own.
Forward on a few years, I came across a company called UniqDsn, which created socks and gloves with such vibrant colors I hadn’t ever seen anything like it! After striking up a conversation with the fantastically friendly owners, I knew they had as much passion for latex as I did. I happened to have an amazing catch-up with the owners @RubberEpitome and @LatexJess about their story, journey and challenges with what they do best!
Images via @PrinceOfRubber
Tell me the story about the making of UniqDsn? Where did the idea come from? Is there a reason why you focus on latex gloves and socks?
Hey there! UniqDsn was officially founded in 2018 in San Diego, California by myself (RubberEpitome) and my partner (LatexJess). We’ve always loved colorful latex, unfortunately, we experienced a fairly common issue where we couldn’t find colorful matching latex accessories. We daydreamed about starting a company to fill this void, and after thinking it through for a few years, we decided to go for it!
Our original intent was to produce custom gas masks and hoses, with gloves and socks being a future effort. We ended up pivoting to do toe socks as these are super unique and somewhat neglected – with respect to color diversity.
After identifying a manufacturer (and overcoming countless barriers along the way), we produced a small run of orange toe socks. We didn’t have a website at the time, so this was all performed via a “group buy” format, FetLife and Tumblr were instrumental. We used Google Forms and then invoiced people manually through PayPal.
Our first run all but sold out within about a few weeks, so we decided to pursue a second color, cerulean. These were greeted with the same level of enthusiasm.. and we gained a ton of wonderful feedback from color, thickness and mould requests – which is when we added gloves.
From here, we’ve just been listening to customers and scaling up, adding more colors, adding more moulds, adding latex care and storage items. Now we’re pursuing apparel and merch – we’ve come a long way!
Are there any challenges working with the materials? Has this changed over time, such as with new advancements in technology?
Plenty! From a production standpoint, our main issues are bubbles/thin spots, texture, and consistency/accuracy.
Bubbles are the bane of our existence. They can be difficult to spot during quality control and can lead to thin spots or holes! We’re quite diligent about finding these, but when you’re producing thousands of moulded items – some can get passed. We always work with customers when there’s a quality concern.
Texturing is something we’ve improved over time. In the beginning, we were quite self-conscious about this as our gloves had an “orange peel” texture on the insides (they still do to some extent). Despite this effect, we continued to sell out. Fortunately, this continues to improve as we update our moulds and use different materials.
Consistency and accuracy refer to.. can we reproduce a color we produced before? Additionally, is that color the exact color we’re attempting to match/produce? We love producing any and every color, but we do try to target popular sheet latex colors as customers want those. This is especially difficult when supply chain issues force us to use different raw materials, machines change, moulds change, etc.
Images via @PrinceOfRubber
The brand has a very distinctive style which focuses a lot on vibrancy and color. Tell me more about that and what you would define the UniqDsn brand as.
Everything you’ve read by UniqDsn was probably written by me, @rubberepitome! It’s all pretty much a stream of consciousness, conversational and free-flowing. When putting together newsletters, I do my best to write things out as I would say them directly to the reader. My tone is typically light, humorous, and eccentric.
I’ve been accused, numerous times, of creating hype – guilty. I love what I do, I love latex, and view everyone in this niche as family. Of course, I hype it up – latex is in my DNA, and I’m thrilled to bring new things to the community I’m a member of and love.
We love color! Latex has come a long way in the last few decades, from being nearly exclusively black or red to anything you can imagine. We live for this and want to continue challenging what can be done. We incorporate color into our newsletters, ad campaigns, website, and stickers/branding, it’s ubiquitous.
Interestingly, I’ve discussed with several people obsessed with latex toe socks – but these people don’t claim to have a foot fetish. Why do you think this is?
You can include us in that! We didn’t have a particular interest in feet. We’re latex fetishists through and through and wanted to produce toe socks because we love ‘total enclosure latex’. That’s when you’re covered from head to toe(s) in latex. They’re certainly interesting from a fashion standpoint and drool-worthy from a foot fetish standpoint! They tick a lot of boxes. Our customers are all over the globe and we love it!
Let us know if you try them and develop a foot fetish I guess?
Images via @PrinceOfRubber
Being based in the US, how do you find the fetish scene there? Do you see this differing from any other territory across the world? If so, why do you think that might be?
Our first exposure to the scene/lifestyle was purely digital. I discovered a forum called the “International Association of Rubberists” (IAR). This became a home base for anything latex. It connected users to Yahoo groups, dedicated sites, fetish icons, shops, and everything. Fetlife became the great unifier and, as of this writing, is still the number 1 fetish site around!
One thing that really stuck out to us was that it was tough to find real people, and if you did – chances are they were in Europe! We live in America, Southern California to be exact, and despite living in close proximity to MAJOR cities in a very progressive state, we had a hard time finding real people and events to attend.
Over time, we’ve learned something amazing. America has these incredible fetish hubs: San Francisco, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, New York City, and even a bit in Los Angeles.
We’re self-proclaimed “house cats”. Up until 2023, we hadn’t truly attended any fetish events and enjoyed our interests privately. Starting UniqDsn plunged us into the public eye and encouraged us to put ourselves out there. (Shoutout to Florida Fetish Weekend for popping that cherry!)
America is still quite conservative.. and given latex/rubber fetishes mainly originated in or were popularized by Britain with the Mackintosh and Wellingtons, it makes sense that we still have some catching up to do. The lifestyle continues to spread here, growing in popularity, and awareness is becoming normalized.
Are there any future plans for UniqDsn that you could let us in on? Any hints to products in the works that you could tell us?
We have a lot of big ideas but don’t like talking about things that aren’t guaranteed to happen!
We’re always working on new colors.. our next major efforts involve metallics (gold, silver, purple, etc.) and translucent (blue, purple, pink, etc.) – some of this has been announced via our newsletter, which users can sign up to here.
We’re expanding our size range to fully support XS through XL on all moulds, and then want to add 2XS, 2XL, and 3XL.
We’re hoping to add an entirely new sock mould in 2024, something that has never been done before. We’re also exploring latex items that aren’t socks or gloves.
Thanks so much for reading, and if you’re interested to learn more from UniqDsn you can either join their mailing list or visit their website!
Images via @PrinceOfRubber
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