Le Boutique Bazaar, London’s alt/fetish pop-up shopping event, made its debut in 2014 on September 13 at Shoreditch club venue McQueen.

On Sunday December 01 this year — a decade (and a bit) later — LBB will be officially celebrating its tenth birthday at For Your Eyes Only (FYEO), the City Road venue that became its established home after McQueen revamped itself out of that privilege in 2018.

A collaboration between Torture Garden’s managing director Charlotte TG and Wasted Chic’s Alexandra Houston, Le Boutique Bazaar was, from its inception, quite obviously different from any fetish market you might have been familiar with up to that point.

Its focus was firmly on the cooler, fashion-aware, design-led aspects of kink creativity, rather than on the more traditional fetish and BDSM products that were the mainstay of existing kink fairs and markets.

No one should really have expected anything less from an event Torture Garden was involved in — it was clearly going to be more cutting-edge than existing efforts, because that’s a requirement for any project TG embarks on.

But the reason Le Boutique Bazaar was able to fulfil that requirement so successfully was very much down to what both partners in this joint venture brought to the table.

While Charlotte TG in 2014 was already one of the fetish scene’s influential movers and shakers, Alexandra — as the lesser known of the pair, with no track record to match TG’s worldwide reputation for event-hosting —

Charlotte begins her contribution to the story by confirming Alexandra’s explanation for Charmskool being a solo venture, saying: “Alex has done an incredible job with getting Charmskool up and running.

“In the early days of LBB we did look at expanding it to an e-commerce business together — it seemed like the natural progression. But when we really went into the reality of developing a new business like that, I could see that I’d been naïve thinking I could do it as a side project.

“It was clear that both financially and timewise, it was just too big an investment for me. It would be learning a new trade from scratch, and that’s definitely not something I could fit around my other work.

“It would need full-time commitment to reach its full potential, and events are still my passion, so it wasn’t the right fit for me.”

Gothic Image Le Boutique Bazaar Studio, 2014

I ask Alexandra if she considers that her experience launching the vintage/artisan-focused Wasted Chic earlier in 2014 paved the way for the launch of Le Boutique Bazaar towards the end of the same year.

“Wasted Chic was an idea I had back in 2013 when I had been running private clothing swap parties in my house that eventually outgrew my home, and I was working as an executive assistant at Microsoft and was often very bored at work!

“At the time a lot of bricks-and-mortar stores were closing down, pop-ups were a fresh new concept, and platforms like Etsy were gaining popularity.

“But there was nowhere that brought cool independent brands and vintage sellers into one physical space. Instagram was in its infancy as well (and not the powerful thing it is now).

“So you had a lot of great brands sitting around on Etsy waiting to be discovered by customers, and a group pop-up was the perfect way to get them in front of people.

“The first Wasted Chic had 15 sellers and was an instant hit. Customers loved meeting the makers, and the makers loved meeting each other — running a small business can be lonely! The social element worked really well too — DJs, cocktails and a buzzy atmosphere.”

Houston quickly realised that the same pop-up concept could also be applied to fetish/alternative retailing.

“I’d gotten into the fetish scene properly in 2009 and was having a love affair with its creativity, so I knew right away that the format would be a good fit for kinky makers.

“London already had established fetish markets of course, but I wanted to create something that focused more on the creativity and fashion element of the scene, rather than taking a more ‘lifestyle’ angle.

“I contacted Charlotte at TG about it and was thrilled that she was interested in exploring the idea with me. I never could’ve done it without her, as I was new to the kink community. Her name and the TG brand gave LBB the credibility it needed to get off to a strong start.”

Charlotte adds: “I had been to a Wasted Chic event so was already aware of what Alex was doing when she got in touch wondering if there was a way we could collaborate on something.

“It was perfect timing, as I was looking for something to start under the TG umbrella that would be more mine to focus on, but tied-in with what we were already doing.

“Alex was very open to working out together how that new venture would look. Our different characters gelled well and were on