3XL has posted a good entry on the Love Lust Latex blog about the trepidation most rubberists have about committing to buying latex online. He is encouraging feedback from people with online buying experiences.
This is a personally interesting topic since I had a conversation with a good friend recently about the concern many people have specifically about this and his desire to see a more physical presence of bricks and mortar fetish retailers here in Vancouver. We thought the possibility of getting into an exclusivity contract with a European haute-couture latex retailer might be a way to get product into the city and get people in the door to look/try/buy said inventory. Reason would have it that this would require a focus on female rubber clothing since this is the largest portion of the latex fetishism market. It might be possible to cater to more men if more imaginative latex creations were available for them to see. Latex has more possibilities than just black wrestlers!
Like him, many people are more comfortable buying stuff they can touch and try on. This particularly applies to clothing, an issue online clothing retailers have tried to overcome since the advent of online retailing. We theorized that going to a physical storefront might be something that would help in getting more people into the fetish scene here on the West Coast since other North American cities that have physical fetish retailers tend to have larger fetish scenes...Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Montreal. Is this a chicken or egg scenario though? Right now, Vancouver has no serious retailers like this except for Priape which targets gay males with a very limited latex line and a few boutique stores that are more targeted at the alternative scenes and aren't focused on latex or leather inventory.
I've found that for those of us that do buy online, once you find a retailer that does a good job of making custom stuff to specific sizing measurements (and you're willing to pay for the customization) or one that makes off-the-rack stuff in a size that fits you, you tend to stick with them for your future purchases as well. This would also apply to a local retailer who would have your measurements on file and could basically create anything you wanted, limited only by your imagination and pocketbook.
My friend has been in the scene in Vancouver for a long time and feels that there are lots of people out there that would come out and support local stores and events only if opportunities would be presented to them to do so. Lots of sheep, not so many shepherds as in most aspects of social life.
For those of you that live in cities with physical fetish stores, what do you think? Is this a good idea or a bad one?
2 comments:
It's difficult to say if having bigger fetish stores would foster a larger fetish community. The advantage of all of the places you mentioned is that they not only have the physical retailers, but also have fairly big name designers of latex and fetish clothing that can get sold through those stores, as well as online. People come from out of town specifically to visit those stores.
In terms of latex, Vancouver stores (like Pirape, Deadly Couture, and so on) tend to have a selection of Polymorph garments imported from Montreal and that's it. They do what they can to serve the community, but they are dealing, by in large, on a local level, and that limits the demand. Vancouver does have a wonderful and growing fetish community, but it only goes so far.
As for myself, I tend to shop online most of the time because the brick and mortar fetish stores don't tend to carry what I'm looking for. I've visited the stores in San Fran and London, and I see more of the same black t-shirts and pants that I see everywhere else. I want colour. I want interesting designs. And you just don't find that sort of interesting clothing for guys in the brick and mortar places. They can order them for you (which can really help if they already have a rapport with the designer) but I've never found a clothing place that had much in the way of selection to start with in any city.
Good points, Nurk. They are certainly something we have considered here and will consider a lot more. I've argued that it is very easy for people to order specifically what they are looking for online these days, therefore something local that is bricks-and-mortar is unnecessary; my friend argues that he (and he believes MANY others) still prefer to go in and actually try clothing on before buying it, and that's why he won't go and take a big risk buying something online. He still appreciates the physicality of trying stuff on in-person, and he believes a lot of others still do as well. If we could find an exclusivity contract with one of the, say, London haute couture designers and sell their stuff through a physical store in Vancouver, or at least provide a place where people could get measured, have the specifics of their desired outfit written down by someone who understands specifically what the designer requires, this may be all that is needed to alleviate people's insecurities about buying something that isn't so local. I still agree with him that if you foster more visibility of what is possible in haute couture fetish design you will attract a lot more people to it, especially the ones that have thought about it but have hesitated to go ahead with getting their desires fulfilled because either they a) don't know where to start (which is a pretty weak excuse...if you have the desire, it's not hard to get information), or b) they don't like what they find locally yet don't want to buy from Europe and hope it is what they want. Maybe it's a pipe dream; the visible market here is small, we believe there is a large underground out there waiting to be tapped. Just a testament to the fact things are growing and will grow more if people are provided the locations and events to come out to. All you need are a few pivotal people in a community that give a damn and will work hard to provide those opportunities, and you can see a critical mass happen. This is exactly what has happened in Montreal and Chicago. I believe Vancouver needs the same. There is a dearth of passionate people wanting to work on this stuff, and as you said, we don't have any talented designers working here to back any of this up. On top of that, with the economy being in the toilet, all that discretionary income spent on latex has dried up (pun intended). For something like this to work in a market like Vancouver, timing will be of the essence as will having the right people to back such a venture up.
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