The Black Room
| Address: |
|---|
| The Black Room German Fetish Shop 1000 East Sahara Ave. Suite #108 Las Vegas, Nevada United States of America |
| Phone/Fax |
| tel: +1(702)685-8688 fax: +1(702)685-0888 |
| Website: |
| www.theblackroomlasvegas.com |
| Map: |
| [link to the latex store map Google map] |
| Labels: |
| Anita Berg, Latexdesire, Elastic Dreams, Blackstyle, LatexAS, Fantasy, Sharon Sloane. |
| Hours: |
| 11am - 8pm Mon - Sat, Closed Sundays |
| Payment: |
| Cash or all major Credit Cards. |
The Black Room is a store in Las Vegas, USA.
History
Franz Pass didn't set out to spend the last two decades selling "kinky" clothing, but that's where he ended up, and he's good at it.
Born in Damme, West Germany (back when there was such a thing) in 1946, Franz grew up near Lake Dümmer, a great spot for fishing and boating. Attending junior college, he learned about the textile retail business and studied management. Eventually he came to the USA in 1970, while working for a German hosiery manufacturer. In that year in Los Angeles he first met the woman who would become his wife, Joan. Born in Hong Kong, she was working in the garment industry, both selling and designing clothing.
Now, here's where it gets interesting (and a little naughty). After getting settled in, in 1972 he started his own distributing business to groceries and drug stores. He began importing "stay up" stockings (the sort that don't need garters to, well, stay up) as, at the time, they were not commonly distributed in the US. After a while, he kept noticing that an intriguingly large number of his customers kept asking him "Do you have any of the kinky stuff?"
Not one to be put off by odd requests, he decided to look into it. A potential market is a potential market, after all. As he was working mostly with German manufacturers, he decided to call in a little help from home. Contacting some old friends, he asked them if they could get hold of a catalogue of some of the racier items for him. Not the sort of request one usually makes of female friends, but they said they'd do it for him. After giving them a few days to get it, he made a long-distance call, only to find that both women (not a little bit tipsy on wine at the time, imbibed to fortify them for what lay within) told him that they were keeping the one they had and would send him another as soon as they could!
He soon found that there was a void in the market for lingerie and fetish wear. Victoria’s Secret would not be founded until 1977. Over the next 20 years he expanded the line of products but always tended to keep “close to home”, importing most of his wares from Germany, giving his clothing a look and style somewhat different from similar items made in the USA.
In 1985, he and Joan opened The Black Room, a fetish store, in Irvine California. They built up a reputation for quality and worked with people from fetish photographers like Gerry Koehler, Ken Markus and David Jackson (of DDI) to legends of the adult film industry like Ron Jeremy, director Jim Powers and Brianna. He’s also provided outfits for fetish models like Mistress Persephone, Kumi Monster, Masuimi Max and Dita von Teese.
After 36 years of marriage, Joan contracted leukemia in 2007. Franz closed the store so he could care for her full time. She passed away in August of 2010.
After two months, Franz decided he wanted a change of scenery and moved to Las Vegas in October. He quickly set up shop off the Strip and opened a new version of the Black Room. Business picked up quite well, and recently, he has partnered with the folks at The Power Exchange, a well-known “adult playground” in San Francisco, who have a second location in Las Vegas, to bring fashion shows, parties, and events to town and showcase both the style and the lifestyle.
Franz Pass maintains a sterling reputation with his suppliers, website customers, and continues to wholesale fashions to stores across the country. "German quality and design is very much appreciated by fetish people," he says, and his success seems to back him up.
Gallery
