Playboy's Playtique
A Brief Foray into Records & Fashion
Carrying on with my little series on short-lived boutiques is one that I’ve long been fascinated by, Playboy’s Playtique—such a flash in the pan that I’ve yet to turn up any photos of it.
In 1975—the year Playboy’s stock tumbled due to competition from raunchier new magazines Penthouse and Hustler—Christie Hefner, the daughter of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, joined the company. As her parents separated when she was five, Christie had grown up living with her mother and seeing her now-famous father only on holidays and birthdays. Several years earlier, after graduating from Brandeis in English, she applied for a summer publishing program at Radcliffe and was accepted; as she remembers in a recent interview, “I was very excited, and was visiting my father who had recently bought his home in LA after graduation and said, ‘I got accepted to this program. I'm going to do that. And then, you know, I think I'm going to try my hand as a journalist.’ And he said, ‘That's great. On the other hand, would you like to move back to Chicago and work with the editors of the magazine for the summer? Do you think you would learn more doing that than the Radcliffe program?’ And I thought about it, I think pretty objectively, and I thought, Yeah, I actually do think I would learn more working with top editors and writers than any more academic program.” Christie interned at Playboy for the summer, learning the ins and outs of writing for a magazine, which provided her enough knowledge to get a job at the Boston Phoenix, a weekly alternative newspaper similar to the Village Voice.
After a year Christie decided that she wanted to go back to school to get a master's in law and public policy at Yale. When she told her father, he offered her an alternative—to move back to Chicago and work for the company, not just the magazine but Playboy Enterprises as a whole. Christie knew little about its dealings “because I'd never really lived with my dad, so it wasn't like he was coming home and talking about, you know, this business or that business… And I think in my father's mind, it was not at all ‘I have a plan for Christie to run the company someday.’ I think it was a ‘Hey, this will give me a chance to spend some time with Christie because I wasn't there when she was growing up.’ And so it was I think, as simple as that.”1 After deciding that it was an interesting opportunity to learn about business, Christie came on as Special Assistant to the Chairman, allowing her to sit in on meetings across all divisions. At the time Playboy had two movie theatres, one in Chicago and one in New York, and Christie was given the task of figuring out what to do with them—could Playboy grow them into a full-scale chain, or should they close? Originally plotted as an “international chain of luxury movie houses” with Bunny usherettes, the Chicago Playboy Theater opened in 1964 with the New York cinema opening in 1971 (by that time no more Bunnies on staff)—there was even briefly a San Francisco cinema that survived just a few months—and were known for screening eclectic and offbeat films. After studying the cinema business, Christie recommended that they close that division—something she personally didn’t want to happen as she was a fan of their programming choices, but deemed it necessary for the business’s bottom line. The Chicago Playboy Theater was sold in October 1976, while the New York one changed hands in 1978.
At the time, another opportunity was brewing for Playboy Enterprises. According to Christie, “The management of the company had become persuaded by some outside consultants that they should go into retailing. And the offices were, as they were for a very long time—I'm looking at it right now—at what was called the Playboy Building, the original Palmolive Building. And that's where all of the Chicago people were headquartered. And, of course, the building is at the corner of Michigan and Walton, which is primo in retail space. And, in fact, the Playboy Club for a while would be in that building. But that stretch there along Michigan and Walton, these consultants had come to Playboy and said, ‘You know, you guys should take your brand into retail for young people. And we have this idea that the two categories of merchandise that young people spend most of their money on are records—because this was before we had even CDs—‘records and clothes. So you know, if we put those two together in one store, it'll be a big hit.’”
Seven years earlier, a real estate developer had had a similar idea—to capitalize on the new youth movement with a store selling their favorite goods, records and jeans. Don Fisher first wanted to call it “Pants and Discs,” but when it opened in August 1969, Fisher went with a name proposed by his wife—“The Gap” was born, selling exclusively Levi’s, records and tapes.2 It soon became apparent that their consumer might be willing to purchase three pairs of jeans but would steal a few records at the same time. Due to high thefts and low sales, the Fishers ended The Gap’s foray into music sales—proving that “records and clothes” were likely not the retail winner that Playboy’s consultants (Penfield Retail Corporation, led by its VP Lou Wachtel) guaranteed it was.
“And so they started working on this project. And again, nobody in the company knew anything about retailing, which, you know, if I were teaching this as a case study, I would say, ‘First warning sign, if you're thinking about going into a new industry is if no one in your company knows anything about it. Maybe question whether you actually have the expertise or even capability to determine if it's a good idea.’ But the company was still in this period of expansionism and believing that they could use the brand to go into almost anything. And they had a lot of lines of business. And so we launched this retail concept, which I was asked to be kind of the project manager of. I did a competition within the company to come up with a name that tied to Playboy but was not Playboy and we chose the name Playtique. And the "i" over the word Playtique was the rabbit head and the legend was ‘Clothes for your body, music for your soul.’
While the space underwent extensive renovations, Christie concentrated on hiring buyers to fill the store. Focusing on “American fashion designs and American record labels,” Playtique was thought to be a “sure thing” that could be expanded “in the upper 50s on Fifth Ave. in New York, and one in Los Angles, within six to seven months” and then to cities in Europe.3 Amongst the records, home entertainment buyer Ken St. Jean put a heavy emphasis on classical and jazz, “in order to build a special identity and in keeping with Michigan Ave. tradition.”4
Sportswear buyer Joanne Gustine scouted French and American markets, looking for Chicago exclusives. Among the designers Playtique was introducing were Jean Nichols’ sweaters from Paris and Californian Linda Somers’ leather separates. Diane Von Furstenberg and Anne Klein designed exclusive scarves, beads, and other accessories for the shop. “We want to cater to the woman who understands fashion,” Gustine told the Chicago Tribune. “Our designers were selected by a group of advisors headed by Eugene Ferkauf, the man behind E.J. Korvette, the New York discount store. They showed us how to select different looks from each designer to suit our customer. For example, we simply didn’t go in and buy the entire Blassport line. We bought specific looks and outfits. And that’s how the clothes will be displayed. Each outfit will be coordinated and accessorized.”5 In addition to Blassport, Playtique carried designs by Kenzo, Gil Aimbez for Genre, Carol Horn, Cathy Hardwick, Cacharel, and Bagatelle, along with jewelry by Chicago natives Carol Erlbach and Blanche Lederer. Clothing prices were to range from $12 for T-shirts to $400 for leather coordinates.
Described as “a blend of classic and modern,” the new interior featured arches and columns across several floor levels giving the effect of many separate boutiques in one. Leather-covered walls and rich tones of tan, bronze and beige filled the space, with bronze-faceted mirrors and brass fittings creating a luxe effect.
“I actually have a picture from the opening with me and my mother, who had come into the company because she'd finally left the bad stepfather and she wanted to go back to work, which she had wanted to do when she was married and he didn't think she should. And here she was now as many women of her generation—college educated, whip-smart but no resume because she hadn't been working for decades, had been a teacher. And I said, ‘Why don't you come work in this new store? Because you have a great sense of fashion and style.’ And actually, she might have been the best salesperson they had.”
Hugh Hefner came out from LA for the August 1976 opening, telling WWD, “We think it makes sense in terms of image and expansion for us. By combining women’s fashions with records and tapes, we’ve hit on the two more high-profit retail items.”6 Designers Carol Horn, Cathy Hardwick and Jean Claude Benaroch all flew in for the gala opening. Immediately it was, in Christie’s words, “an abysmal failure.”
“I mean, it's like losing money and the consultants say, ‘Oh, you know, they always lose money at the beginning, and then they start making money’… And so then finally, the senior management of the company said, ‘You know, maybe these consultants don't know what they're doing.’ And so they sort of said, ‘Why don't you see if you can figure out what, what's happening here.’ And again, it's kind of like an assignment. So I called the general managers of every store on Michigan Avenue and asked if I could go have a cup of coffee with them. And I said, ‘I need to learn about retailing.’ And somebody told me that, you know, there's an association, you can join, and you get all these statistics. And you can look at like, what's your shrinkage? What's your labor as a percentage of sales, you know, what your markdowns are, what your returns are? So I'm getting all this data, and I'm looking at our, you know, results. And I'm trying to figure out, like, where the deltas are, and what do we have to do differently.”
In keeping with Playboy’s reputation, the store stayed open until 1 am (2 am on Saturday) yet it just wasn’t making sales. Christie planned in-store fashion shows, record signings by famous artists, late-night parties and other events—all desperately trying to get more shoppers in. Ads from February 1977 show a fifty-percent sale on all clothes, while I was unable to find any conclusive proof of the store existing past fall 1977—articles from 1978 and 1977 talk in a passing way as if the store was still open, but no ads or other information backs this up.
“And, you know, and we worked on it over a period of many months, and then we got it to modestly profitable, and then we got out of it, which is what they should have done all along. But it was actually a fascinating experience. Because even though it's a tiny little thing, it kind of has all of the elements of a bigger thing, right? It has personnel issues, it has marketing issues, it has finance issues, it has inventory issues, it has budget needs, it has cashflow needs—so it was kind of like a mini MBA. It was actually really valuable. And ultimately, I could at least feel like we actually had gotten it to a point where it's modestly profitable.”
Playtique’s failure appears to come down to several issues. First, Playboy never should have gone into retail, especially designer sportswear and music, based solely on the recommendations of consultants and without any retail knowledge themselves. Second, their stock choices (classical/jazz and women’s sportswear) might have fit who they wanted the Playboy reader to be but were very far off from what the Playboy name suggests—no woman would normally consider checking out a Playboy store when looking for a simple sweater or leather bag. Instead of leaning into Playboy’s reputation, they chose a different direction—they likely would have had greater success if it had been a store of disco dresses and lingerie, items that felt more in keeping with the idea of a Playboy Playmate. Though Hefner loved jazz and Playboy had long cultivated an image of an erudite, intellectual, culturally engaged reader, that “Playboy man” did not translate into sales of records and womenswear.
Christie went on to become chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises from 1988 and 2009, and continues to consult and work with many companies across many spheres of society, from beauty to newspapers.
This and all of the block quotes below from Christie’s interview on the HerStories podcast, November 8, 2022.
Donald Fisher and Art Twain, Falling Into the Gap (Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company, 2002), 14-18.
Tish Jett, “Eye,” Women’s Wear Daily, August 23, 1976, 10.
Alan Pechansky, “Playboy Combining Disks and Clothes At Chi Store,” Billboard, July 4, 1976, 8.
Marylin Stitz, “Fashion and Music will be in perfect step at Playtique,” Chicago Tribune, August 16, 1976, C12.
Jett.
Wow, fascinating! Such a great read, thank you. Christy sounds like an awesome woman!