A cellar full of Expectations...
premium leather lines from our existing suppliers but in the end decided to take things to another level - a whole other league - and Mister B has the reputation, internationally, for that high quality so we went after them. We’ll still carry the lower-priced leather so we have something for everyone’s pocket. Very few other places in Britain can you see a leather fetish collection with the breadth we have here. If you’re looking for leather chaps or jeans, which you’ll be wearing for years, and will be drawing attention for years - it’s a very visible thing and guys will think ‘nice leather’ because they have the eye for that quality.” Asked what his personal favourites from the Mister B range of products stocked by Expectations were, Topham reached for the posing pouches. “I do like the leather jockstraps. All of these designs I think are really nice. They have that ‘push up’ quality to enhance, giving the wearer a really nice packet. You’ll see from the models, wearing one of these, you can walk around a sex club in just a jockstrap and boots and look really great. If that’s all you’re wearing, and you’re on display, then you’ll want that jockstrap to
Simon Topham: “Mister B have an extraordinary range of wonderful products”
really show you off to the best advantage. I see you’ve noticed the horse speculum. I have to say I’ve never seen one of those in action but I know there’s a good market for outsized toys. I’ve been in the sex business for 20 years but even I can walk around Expectations and see things and say ‘I’ve no idea what that does’ and I don’t really want to think too much about it! That’s the joy of Expectations; anything a gay fetish enthusiast could want is here and the staff, many of whom have been here for years - well, they know their stuff,” he chuckled.
Proudly holding a pair of iconic Mister B leather chaps, owner Wim Bos commented: “I hope you liked my opening speech. I tried to be inspirational. To build a company like mine in 17 years, from one man behind a counter to what it is now, you have to be inspirational, creative and so on. Now I’m in London to open this shop-in-shop at Expectations, I didn’t bring a written speech with me. I looked around, thought on what I wanted to say about where we are and where we’re going, and spoke. The story is we met with Expectations at eroFame in Berlin last October and started planning what we could do together. We tried to visit the shop in December but you had so much snow in London that everything - all travel - was closed and we came in January instead. After that, we made proposals about what we felt would work best here from our range of 10,000 lines - what would make sense - and that’s what you see now. It’s a start and to be honest, this is a very fine spot to have in this shop but I’m always thinking, how can I enlarge? How can we expand to take over more of their floor space? Simple - Mister B needs to be a success in this shop. That’s what I want to see; Mister B helping Expectations be successful with our stock. “As I explained in my opening speech, it’s our hope that we can grow in the British market to the point that we can have a successful Mister B franchise shop in London, and Paris, and Barcelona and so on, to join Amsterdam, Berlin and Dortmund. Certainly, for us
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London is a very important market and I think things will work with Expectations and Millivres Prowler very well, perhaps to develop such a set-up in the future. The success of this shop-in-shop will be a big part of that and we’ll work on it. We’ll be busy to help it grow with new ideas, new products, fresh leather lines and so on. Expanding leather sales isn’t so easy as it’s not so popular with younger guys, but we’re working on designs which will appeal to them - to make them enthusiastic about buying leather or rubber - and to show up at parties looking wonderful. For me, the iconic Mister B line, as well as our strongest seller, are the Mister B chaps. Before I opened the first Mister B shop I was looking for the perfect chaps and said ‘no, this needs to be changed and that needs to be like this’. I was very critical because I wanted to stock the best chaps and now, as then, I think we have delivered on that ambition. They’re great. They have the best fit around the butt and they’ve always sold very well. If I were to sum up Mister B in a single product, it would be these. These are Mister B and when you see them on the body of a model you’ll know they fit, 100% perfect.”
A three-man tag-team of models - Adam, Petr and Liam - later took to the large room-centre counter-top as an impromptu catwalk and strutted their stuff in several distinct looks from the Mister B range, three times each, to the delight of the crowd. Topham commented on them: “The models were fantastic. We’ll be using them again. We do a lot of underwear shoots for MPG and those guys looked great in underwear. I knew, while we were setting up a fashion show for Mister B, that we needed guys who were a level above the models we’ve used before because we really wanted a presentation befitting the quality of the product. They delivered that premium.” As to how successful the Mister B range will be, Simon confided: “As we were unpacking the Mister B stock from the boxes and putting it out, people were buying it. We sold over £1,000 before today’s launch!”
Erotic Trade Only June 2011
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