For thirty years, PRIAPE has existed in Canada. Based out of Montreal, Quebec, the company does brisk business throughout Canada using its catalogue mail order service. In July of 2003, local customers rejoiced when PRIAPE opened a store on 17th Avenue, offering the convenience of on the spot shopping without the wait or shipping costs. Gaycalgary.com sat down with PRIAPE’s Marcel Larochelle to talk about the first year’s success..

How long as PRIAPE been in existence?

On November 11th of this year, we will celebrate our 30th anniversary.

Previously, everyone had to order merchandise through the mail. That was the goal behind opening a store in Calgary and Vancouver, so people can physically see what they are buying. We wanted to cater to the clientele out west and have them see up close and personal what we have. The goal of the company was to have a store in the two major cities in the east, Toronto and Montreal, and the two main ones in the west, those being Calgary and Vancouver. Everything for Calgary just fell into place so rapidly that we were ready to go; we are still planning our Vancouver location. Presently, Calgary is the only location in Western Canada.

As far as film is concerned, PRIAPE is the only Canadian distributor for a number of titles. We buy the rights from the US Film Companies and are the only legal distributor. So frequently, but not always, video stores that carry gay adult films obtained them through us.

It was very smooth. We weren’t expecting it to be so easy to be honest. The city was quick to provide us with the proper paperwork and permits. The community itself has been very welcoming, that helps a lot as well. Our neighbours have been very cool; the businesses like to see places open and create traffic in this area. A lot of the business on 17th is concentrated between 2nd and 8th street, and now it allows people to come further down 17th. We are becoming a bit of a community itself.

We wanted to do something special because there aren’t a lot of gay stores in Calgary. PRIAPE already was an established name through the mail order business, and based on the large size of the store, we wanted an official opening. It was cause to celebrate. It was an overwhelming evening because so many people came, and the community was out in full force to wish us good luck and see the show. Production wise, it was harder to put together because I was not yet familiar with the city. Finding the right companies for camera crew, staging company, models and such required quite a bit of research. We had a huge screen, and it was very visually appealing. We were lucky to have Mr. Devin Mills host the show and perform, and he did a fabulous job.

We have our own clothing line. Our designer has done an incredible job. The entire line is not in the store yet, but it should be here in three weeks. We import underwear and bathing suit lines from Europe and the US. This year, we are the first ones in Canada to offer AussieBaum clothing from Australia. They were the official sponsors for the Gay Games in Sydney, so that is very exciting. We also have NYPD from the States; we are the first to introduce that line to Canada. We try very hard every year to introduce a hot new line that may be well known elsewhere, and we get the rights to bring it to Canada. The clothing lines are becoming more and more important. The PRIAPE line of clothes is sold in 17 different cities, such as Milan, San Francisco, London, Paris and New York. We have just broken into the Asian market as well. We are very happy with that.

We have a mostly gay clientele, but we also get a great deal of straight women who come in now to buy clothes for their boyfriends, which is quite fun. They don’t venture throughout the store they mostly remain up front. Sometimes they even bring their husband or boyfriend with them. People seem to be venturing through the store depending on their tastes. The nice thing about the store design is that it is broken down, the clothing line is at the front, the films and other adult products are in the middle, and our leather selection is in the back.

It was strongly recommended that we have a back entrance; we are glad we did it because it is very effective. There are two reasons why we have it. First is that some people want to be discrete and come in quietly and the back door allows for more anonymity. As well, it can be very hard to park on 17th, so it gives our clients space to leave their vehicles.

We have a lot of visitors from Edmonton. We also have people who stop here all the time when they visit from the states.

At this point in time all mail order is still handled by the head office and warehouse in Montreal. We are working on a set-up to do western Canadian orders from Calgary; we will see what comes of that.

This year will be a great experience for us because it is the first time we will be a major part of the gay events in Calgary like Pride and the rodeo. We have sponsor events in Toronto for eleven years and Montreal for thirty, so we have experience in doing it. It will be exciting to participate in these events; there is a lot happening in Calgary. As a company, we have a lot of community involvement, but this being our first year we have not done as much as we will be doing. We help the Make a Wish Foundation. We will continue to get involved with charities and major events in Calgary like we do in Montreal and Toronto as we grow.

We are very happy to have achieved our goal of opening here. The first year is often difficult and critical, and we have done all right; we are very grateful to the community for giving us the support to get here. We want to be here for a long time. We’re not here to pass through and go; we hope to stay and grow within the community as well.

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Contributor Jason Clevett |

Locale Calgary |

Topic Priape | Fashion |

Photo Gallery Priape |