Dildos for the lah-di-dah

2002-10-15 10:48

Paris - The stairs to the basement are barred by a wooden gate with a sign saying No Minors, but the very chic saleswoman in black is taking no chances and is letting no one through unaccompanied, minor or not.

On a shelf downstairs sits a big yellow bath sponge shaped like a ball that vibrates when turned on.

A lipstick turns out to be a vibrator for Shiatsu points posing as a cosmetic, and a male shopper picks up a long white sex toy saying "It looks like a telephone!"

This is Sonia Rykiel Woman, a new shop with a new concept involving a line of erotic goods that was opened a few days ago by Nathalie Rykiel, daughter of France's knitwear designer queen, in the heart of the Saint-Germain-des-Pres district in Paris.

Once-upon-a-time the hub of Paris bohemia, the haunt of existentialist writers and jazz musicians, Saint-Germain has become the heart of high fashion.

Designer shops have popped up like the plague and Sonia Rykiel Woman sits amid a bevy of big names placed side-by-side like a label-land paradise - Prada, Versace, Pucciverdi, Yves Saint-Laurent, Barbara Bui, Yohji Yamamoto, Hogan's, Paraboot, Salvatore Ferragamo.

This shop, one of several owned by Rykiel in the immediate vicinity, is small and intimate in its layout and design. It has streetwear on the ground floor, lacy black lingerie upstairs and bath and bed wear on sale with the sex toys in the forbidden underbelly below.

"This is a new concept, there is nothing like it in Paris or anywhere," said the saleswoman who asked not to be named.

The bath-sponge, the fake lipstick, two vibrators - a large white and a small orange one - and a couple of more explicit playthings are sold in sleek, specially-designed black satin sequinned bags carrying the Sonia Rykiel label.

"Our aim was to remove these objects from the sleazy universe of the sex-shops and the packaging does make a difference," the sophisticated salesoman went on.

"We wanted women to feel this shop was designed for them, and we wanted the store to feel like a boudoir."

Nathalie Rykiel, whose idea it was, said in an interview that the store was proving to be so popular that the concept "obviously caught the spirit of the times." There have been so many customers at times that the doors have had to be closed.

"Our aim was to dedramatise, get rid of the guilt and the complexes associated with pleasure, and it's almost as if people were waiting for it," she said.

"Most women would never set foot in a run-of-the-mill sex-shop; they're seedy, most of the clients are men, people stare at you and the way things are sold is usually atrocious."

"This shop is about the woman of the 21st century, a woman with no complexes, a woman who enjoys pleasure," she said. "Audacious but classy."

The top two floors have perfumes, lighters, candles and anti-stress teddybears along with the clothes.

Downstairs among the range of sex toys there are big rubbery dice for He and She at play. One has nouns such as "body" or "lips", the other verbs such as "tease" or "touch."

The basement floor also flaunts towelled bathrobes in black or leopard-skin, matching towels, lacy black shawls, soft hooded pashmina robes and knitted fur blankets in black or deep purple that cost a couple of thousand euros.

There too is Cyberflicker, which the French prefer to call "la petite souris" (little mouse) - a deep purple fistful of rubber topped by whiskerlike antennae that rotate and vibrate - and the most expensive and gaudy toy The Rabbit, a dildo that featured on the US television series "Sex And the City", part of which looks like the animal.

"There is no other shop like it in the world," said Nathalie Rykiel, who believes the idea is a natural follow-up on her mother's own revolutionary ideas for women, such as body-hugging sweaters in the 1970s made to be worn with no bra underneath.

And now, Rykiel said, London is to get its first Sonia Rykiel shop too, next December, ahead of Christmas. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA