Designer sex
Designer labels are no longer the reserve of clothes and cars. TheSite goes shopping and discovers that sex shops have reached a whole new level.
The traditional image of a sex shop is a dingy, poorly lit dive down the back on an alley stuffed with atrocious porn and badly made fetish gear. However a new breed of sexual entrepreneurs are attempting to provide a more inclusive service that caters to women and men whose tastes are a little more refined.
Now celebrating its tenth birthday Sh! is justly considered the mother of all erotic emporiums. Starting out in a tiny rented shop in Hoxton with a budget of only £700, Sh! has grown to become a healthy and expanding business with a large loyal client base. Sh! caters exclusively to women's sexual needs. Men are allowed in the store but only if escorted by a responsible female.
The death of tack?
"We're probably best defined by the things we don't sell," says Karen Hoyle, co-founder of Sh!, whose innovations in sex retailing have lead the industry. "We don't stock blow up dolls, we don't do any of those silly novelty toys that are made for a Carry On sense of humour and we don't have any porn."
A whole variety of women use the store. "It varies from sassy young girls who come in for their first vibrator to women in tweed suits who look like they should be on a jury coming into the store shaking. Some of them have never had an orgasm before."
"14% of you who responded to our Saucy Survey said that sex toys are an essential part of your sex lives, while 48% use them now and again."
A grand for a sex toy
While Sh! made sex shopping a female friendly experience, companies such as Coco de Mer and Myla have turned it into high fashion. Coco de Mer was launched in November last year by Sam Roddick (daughter of the Body Shop's Anita) with a poster campaign that showed 11 friends of hers at the point of orgasm. Based in Covent Garden the shop hopes, as one spokes person said, "to show the creative and sensual side of the erotic to a more contemporary consumer audience."
This translates into a stock of exorbitantly priced lingerie and sex toys that include a £1000 glass vibrator. The sort of item designed to be the centre piece of a dinner party held by their chattering class clientele - hopefully after it's been washed.
Myla is the brain child of two former city workers Nina and Charlotte who raised the corporate finance necessary to start the company up last September. Their aim was to provide a line of erotic products for the designer conscious. Gone are the crotchless PVC panties and in their place is this season's range of erotic apparel. Not the type of fashion item you can parade in public, but think of the fun you'll have giving private shows.
On the shopping list
"Our best selling items," Nina says, not unsurprisingly, "are our toys. We have a whole range of items that have been specially sculpted for us. The most expensive is called Bone, it's designed by Habitat's designer Tom Dixon OBE. It costs £149 and there's a six month waiting list to buy one. One of our customers said it's quicker for him to buy a Morgan motorbike than it is buy one of them." Although a Morgan probably wouldn't be as much fun to ride.
With Myla currently trading from their website, a trendy boutique in Notting Hill and even a special section of Selfridges it would now appear that the consumer revolution has finally met the sexual revolution. Will shopping ever be the same again...?
