LOS ANGELES — London-based Coco de Mer, purveyor of “erotic luxury” — mainly vintage-inspired silk intimates, erotic literature and boudoir accessories — has opened its first U.S. store on Melrose Avenue here.
The retailer launched its only other store in London’s Covent Garden in 2001.
Sam Roddick, daughter of The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, founded the company that was named for a palm tree that has fruits resembling the male and female anatomies. It was in response to the sterile, often antiwoman atmosphere of erotica shops.
Where rival Agent Provocateur celebrates vintage pinup girl aesthetics, Coco de Mer speaks to less overt sides of female sexuality. The 1,100-square-foot Melrose Avenue boutique is a study in opulent oddities. Coco de Mer’s private label makes up the bulk of its apparel offerings, and was inspired partly by Roddick’s childhood visits to “very macabre museums.”
“There was an element of darkness and curiosity,” she said. “I’m an obsessive museum- goer. The source of my creativity is very much the historical.”
Victorian-esque silk corsets festooned with exotic bird feathers and faux roses by Coco de Mer, priced around $2,000, adorn mannequins near a rack of silk floor-length dressing gowns and vampy Betty Page-style dresses from Coco de Mer and British labels such as Alöe and Basso & Brook, priced around $400. A mélange of small leather handcuffs and goods designed by Paul Seville, leatherworker for Alexander McQueen, reside near a second rack of silk underthings. This time, matching sets of Coco de Mer bras and panties in deep hues such as navy and wine, sell for around $100 each. Panties feature decorous elements such as rows of frills and oversized hip-slung bows. Bras feature such detail as ribbons streaming from the tops of demi-cups to the waist, capped with teardrop-shaped pearls.
The store’s gold-and-burgundy dressing room features a small adjacent space from which an individual can “peep” at their companions through a grated window controlled from within the dressing room. The room is styled romantically with an old typewriter situated below metal chains running across the length of the nook, bearing clothes-pinned Polaroids of chaste body parts such as legs and clavicles.
“She can invite someone to peek at her when she chooses,” Roddick said. “That’s there to treat her partner.”