Designer chic has extended its grasping fingers into the adult sex toy market in a big way, and today, women are no longer satisfied with plasticy flesh colored phallic symbol vibrators they hide in their bedroom. They want sleek, modern, sophisticated adult sex toys they can display on their coffee table. In the ‘60’s they burned their bras. In the noughties they display their sex toys.
The Motif Vibe are a new breed of expensive sex toys aimed at style-conscious women and men. “They’re small, they’re classy, they feel nice – and they don’t look out of place alongside an iPhone in a Burberry handbag,” so the philosophy goes. Despite the recession, women and men are buying them in droves.
At Kiki de Montparnasse (you just know nothing’s going to come cheap with a pretentious name like that!) they sell egg shaped vibrators to celebrities at $135 a pop.
What’s more, all coyness about buying and giving sex toys as a gift is long gone. Sex toys are the new flowers. This is reflected in rising sales in several swish new sex stores including Sh!, an exclusive women’s sex shop where sales are up 35%. At JimmyJane, the American adult sex toy supplier to the rich and famous, where Kate Moss paid $325 for a gold plated vibrator and prices go up to $3,500, sales are also rising rapidly by 35%.
And despite the recession, at Lelo, the Swedish manufacturer of aesthetically designed vibrators, sales are up an astounding 200% year on year.
At the pricier end of the market it seems women are being seduced by clever marketing. First, they are told that their lives aren’t complete without the designer handbag, then the 4in designer heels, and now they have been told that they have to spend hundreds on a designer sex toy as well.
And the rationale behind the sale is, if you can afford it, why buy an adult sex toy rendered from a biohazard of chemical toxins in China, when for $300, you can have a hand-tooled 24k limited edition from Jimmyjane.
The world awaits David and Victoria Beckham’s range of his and hers designer sex toys.