From a Pink Suitcase to a Luxury Empire: How Lola Montez Was Built (Despite Everyone’s Best Efforts)
In the early 2000s, the phrase “adult store” conjured a very specific image: flickering neon signs, windowless basements, sticky carpets, and the faint sense that you might need to explain yourself to someone if you were seen entering or worse, exiting.
For women, these spaces were rarely empowering. At best, they were awkward. At worst, they were intimidating, male-centric, and deeply uncomfortable.
Sharon Gordon (me) looked at this landscape and thought, No thank you. Not just as a consumer, but as a woman who understood that pleasure, autonomy, and dignity should not require a disguise or a dark alley.
My journey to change that narrative didn’t begin with venture capital, a business plan, or a glossy pitch deck. It began with a divorce, a fierce sense of independence, and a single pink suitcase.
The Pink Suitcase Revolution
Post-divorce, I found herself at a familiar crossroads: rebuild or retreat. I chose rebuild with humour, audacity, and a rolling suitcase that would soon become legend.
That pink suitcase was packed with carefully curated products and wheeled into living rooms across Johannesburg. These were not parties in the clichéd sense; they were intimate, honest gatherings where women asked the questions they had never been allowed to ask out loud.
What quickly became clear was that women weren’t embarrassed by pleasure they were embarrassed by the industry surrounding it.
They didn’t want products that looked like they belonged in a bachelor’s cupboard. They wanted beauty. Quality. Discretion. Objects that could sit proudly on a bedside table next to a favourite book or luxury perfume, not hidden in a sock drawer like contraband.
In those living rooms, between nervous laughter and candid conversations, a brand philosophy was born.
The Birth of the Boutique (Cue Resistance)
Demand grew rapidly, and the pink suitcase eventually needed a permanent home. Enter the idea of a boutique adult store, bright, elegant, female-focused, and educational.
And this is where I met her first major obstacle: landlords.
Apparently, selling lingerie is fine. Selling sex is fine. Selling alcohol is absolutely fine. But selling pleasure for women? That was a bridge too far.
Retail spaces were suddenly “no longer available.” Lease applications mysteriously disappeared. One landlord suggested the store might “attract the wrong sort of people.” (To this day, it remains unclear who exactly these people were, but one assumes women with credit cards and opinions.)
When a space was finally secured, the Lola Montez Boutique stood in direct opposition to everything the adult retail industry had been. No neon or shame. Absolutely no awkward smirks.
Instead: airy interiors, elegant displays, and staff trained to educate, not intimidate.
The mission was simple, create a space where a woman could walk in confidently and walk out feeling informed, empowered, and entirely unashamed.
Banking on Hypocrisy
Then came the banks.
If landlords were nervous, banks were positively scandalised.
To this day, financial institutions reserve the right to dictate which legal products a business may sell online. Handcuffs? Flagged. Silk rope? Apparently dangerous. Anal water-based lubricant? Absolutely not, ABSA does not approve.
This is not satire. This is daily reality.
The irony, of course, is that these same institutions are perfectly happy to process payments for alcohol, gambling, and fast fashion. But a lubricant designed for safety and comfort? Unacceptable.
So, I adapted. Again. Because women entrepreneurs learn quickly that the rules are rarely written with us in mind.
“So… Are You a Prostitute?”
Perhaps the most exhausting challenge, however, was not structural, it was social.
From strangers to professionals, I was repeatedly reduced to a single lazy assumption: If you sell adult products, you must be selling yourself.
The judgment is relentless and often delivered with misplaced moral authority. Invitations dried up. Respect had to be re-earned in rooms where it was freely given to men selling far more questionable things.
And yet, Lola Montez endured because the women it served understood exactly what it stood for.
From Four Walls to the Digital Frontier
At its height, Lola Montez operated four physical boutiques, each a sanctuary for women who wanted elegance without apology.
As the world shifted online, I once again stepped ahead of the curve, transforming Lola Montez into a premier digital destination for luxury adult products.
The online store extended what the boutiques began: access without intimidation, beauty without embarrassment, and pleasure without shame, now available to women far beyond city limits.
A Legacy of Elegance (and Stubborn Persistence)
Lola Montez was never just a store. It was and remains a quiet rebellion.
Ireplaced secrecy with sophistication. We challenged institutions that believed they could police pleasure. It proved that women do not need permission to own their bodies, their desires, or their businesses.
Every sculptural vibrator, every wellness kit, every carefully chosen product still carries the DNA of that original pink suitcase and the belief that dignity and desire can, and should, coexist.
And if that makes some people uncomfortable?
Well. That was kind of the point. Viva the revolution, shop now www.lolamontez.co.za and don’t forget to follow us on our socials –
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/stories/lolamontezboutique/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/LOLA.MONTEZ.PAGE
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@SharonGordonLolaMontez
TikTok – I just can’t