German retail giant turns to sex

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Even when times are tough, sex sells, or at least that's what one of the most venerable names in German retailing will be hoping.


Skimpy lingerie, fur-trimmed handcuffs and dildos in various autumnal shades grace this season's window displays at Karstadt's 34,000-square-metre department store in Frankfurt.


The new spectacle is turning heads in Germany's financial capital. Passers-by gawp into a shop whose owner faces one of the worst crises in its 123-year history as shoppers are turned off by a lacklustre economy and sky-high unemployment.


"I'm shocked," Filiz, a 19-year-old trainee from Gelnhausen, says of the wares on show. "Well, very surprised to see them here I mean," she adds, before turning to grin at her friends.


Five minutes later and two of those companions are to be found in the Mae B. boutique on Karstadt's first floor where the curious teenager or the discerning businesswoman can pick up everything from chocolate body paint to a cat o' nine tails.


Young assistants brandishing nothing more threatening than feather dusters stand by ready to offer advice on merchandise, much of which is normally the domain of lonely businessmen lurking in the seedy side-streets near Frankfurt's main train station.


"Often sex shops are in areas where normal women don't want to go," says Antje Greve who, after 10 years working for Karstadt, is now Mae B.'s sales and purchasing manager. "Men come in too and ask why there isn't a shop like this for them."


PLAYING THE FIELD


Greve believes the new venture can broaden KarstadtQuelle's traditional customer base after Europe's biggest department store group warned this week that its 15-billion-euro business would make hefty losses.


"This is the way Karstadt has to go if they want to be global players," she says of the concessions that can now also be found in the retailer's Berlin and Hamburg stores.


Mae B. -- a recent move upmarket by leading sex shop chain Beate Uhse -- is not only drawing in the German hausfrau, but also teenagers and couples, she adds.


Beate Uhse, the female Luftwaffe pilot who founded the company after World War Two as the Institute for Marital Hygiene, would no doubt have approved of the changes afoot.


That a conservative retailer such as Karstadt is putting on such a display reflects changing attitudes, Greve says.


"Today sex and erotica is something you can talk about, it's not taboo anymore ... We didn't know if people would be ready for this but they are coming out of here smiling."


After the initial shock, that appeared to be the most common reaction outside on one of Germany's busiest shopping miles.


"It's much more natural to see things presented like this," says Peter, a 55-year-old carpenter from Frankfurt. "It somehow doesn't have the filthy image anymore."