Remembering the Magick and Fetish Shop Art Gallery and Fetish Store

The fetish art gallery and kinky toy store

It must have been my first month in Los Angeles. I barely knew anyone in the BDSM scene. Threshold was harder to join than Fight Club. Groups didn’t cross over as much as they did in San Francisco. Munches were not common. Lair De Sade wouldn’t start for another year or two. 665 had not officially opened yet and Pleasure Chest was more like Wal-Mart than a community center.

Magick and Fetish Shop was posting on a usenet group at the time. They were a godsend. Located in a tiny strip mall in Silverlake right at Sunset Junction. This tiny place featured hand-crafted bondage equipment, floggers, and corsets. They stocked supplies for a variety of rituals and magic, and in the back, was a nifty little gallery of erotic, BDSM, and alternative art.

I sold several pieces through the shop, including two created exclusively for their alien art exhibition. I created a flyer for the shop, and was working on a second. They offered classes on BDSM. I attended some great art shows there. Unfortunately, the shop did not last. Despite having a great following, the neighborhood apparently did not support the place enough.

Silverlake was going through a gentrification phase which continues to this day. Nearby Los Feliz, home to places like Mondo Family Video, and Amok Books, has gone through a similar fate. The problem seems to be the same venues that draw the hip and cutting edge,  don’t last forever when their customers draw businesses like franchise coffee shops, fitness centers, and clothing stores. Most notably, the rents go up, which means the thing that drew the eclectic shops there, eventually drives them away.

I miss Magic and Fetish Shop. I still think there isn’t a place just like it in LA anymore. We have galleries, BDSM stores, and even majick shops like Psychic Eye. But that alternative, eclectic mix doesn’t exist in just one store anymore. Not that there isn’t hope. Maybe we’ll see something like it pop up in the valley someday.