One wall is crammed with what’s reportedly the largest hosiery collection in town.
#Spartacus portland plus#
A large chunk of inventory is devoted to plus sizes, so everyone can have the option to replicate Britney Spears’s “.
Men’s leather bondage harnesses hang with care beside cute striped briefs and breakaway banana hammocks. Rainbow heart pasties sit next to gold lamé cat suits. Meanwhile, the front room (once all ages, it’s now generally 18-and-over, like the back) is all about fashion and shopper transformation. The back room operates as a tradi tional adult store, with lubes galore, Gun Oil to Sliquid, the Rabbit vibrator made famous on Sex and the City, a proud display of the house leather line alongside a necessary “Please refrain from hitting other customers” sign, and a helpful staff trained to not bat an eye when you ask what goes where. Miller says the shop’s customer-first motto means employees “pride themselves on discretion and privacy.”) It’s the spot to grab giant fairy wings for Pride, a lifesaver for dancers and drag queens, an insider destination for fashion designers amping up runway shows with sky-high heels, bachelorette gangs in need of party props, and, obviously, bedroom spice seek ers. Today, the shop flourishes as part of local ritual.
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They shifted their leather workshop to a full manufacturing space near the airport, to keep up with an international clientele and stockists across the continent, Europe, and even Australia. In 1987, the couple closed that shop and opened Spartacus at the now-storied 1,500-square-foot downtown location.
The pair felt the BDSM community here was underserved in shopping options (there was no Internet marketplace to fall back on), so the two opened a small retail space on NE Sandy Boulevard, churning out pieces for the kink curious-like Spartacus Leathers wrist restraints and purple floggers-in the store’s basement. The shop was founded by Al Bedrosian, an Armenian from Lebanon by way of San Francisco, and his style-loving wife, Lynda.
“We greet every customer who walks in the door and tell them to ask us any questions, because we have things to share.” “I know people are very uncomfortable the minute they enter our store, and I wanted to take off that pressure,” she says. The shop’s retail buyer for lingerie, V Thongrivong, loves the curious ones who wander in.
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