One of London’s oldest fetish clothing stores, Regulation, has relocated from its longtime home in Islington into the heart of Soho in Bateman Street. I popped along to capture a few pics of the new store for BOYZ Magazine.
Regulation was started by two friends, primarily as a fetish wear store, in the early 1990s when London saw the growing emergence of fetish and kink events. Back then the store featured all sorts of items from military surplus to PVC and even a small selection of womenswear. Over time we’ve refined the clothing we produce and increased our selection of BDSM and fetish related products dramatically.
After 27 years in Angel our lease was coming to an end and sadly our building was due for redevelopment. More luxury flats of course. I think we were lucky to be there for quite so long but ultimately we wanted to keep the retail store open at the end of the lease so scouted a few different areas in London to see where we’d fit. Our main criteria was ease of access. With its rich LGBT history we felt Soho was a natural destination for many of our customers and close enough to some major tube stations for tourists.
The new store is split over two levels with primarily BOXER Barcelona gear and leather on the ground level and more explicit items along with rubber in a rather expansive basement. We’ve all the same facilities as before which include our bespoke gear services, alterations and in store collections. We’ve designed some great fitting rooms in collaboration with Pink Mince to make trying on gear fun and comfortable. It’s also the first time we’ve had a store window so we’re looking forward to creating some fun and creative displays in the future.
We’re fortunate in that we make most of our rubber and leather clothing in our workshop in North London. Turn ups on jeans can often be done in store while you wait but in our workshop we really can produce most types of garment to your size and preferred design. We offer a lot of off-the-peg fetish wear and have increased size ranges on a number of popular products but sometimes customers want something that little bit more fitted and unique. Customers can book a custom fit appointment on our website or pop in store where one of our team can usually help.
We acquired Fetters in 2015 and it’s now part of our two brand family. Fetters make a great range of high quality bondage items in their workshop in Warwick including heavy duty BDSM furniture for bondage clubs and home dungeon spaces. We stock all of Fetters’ brand product on our website and have many of their popular products in our London store. We’re aiming to increase the range of Fetters restraints available and make it more of a Fetters destination in London. It’s part of trying to make Regulation a prime destination for kink and fetish with a focus on authentic BDSM play.
The new Regulation store is at 13A Bateman Street, Soho W1D 3AF. You can also shop online at regulation.co.uk