It's been awhile since I posted last, and Mosh was asking me if HedonsFair was shutting down, so I guess I should clarify the direction we are going.

No, HedonsFair is not shutting down.  We are going to focus on what we do and that is make clothing.  No more blogs, advice columns, product storylines, or any other PR bullshit.  HedonsFair will have clothing and clothing only.  The content will move elsewhere, so don't cry about that going away either.

Early next year HedonsFair will get a fetish facelift as we try to appeal to a strictly fetish genre.  Instead of selling clothing we will try renting outfits.  Each outfit will be rented 3 times and then sold via auction. 

Where will the blogs and content go?  Yes, I know you love reading the content, unfortunately for us that's not why HedonsFair is here.  So, since we've been incredibly successful at writing content people love to follow, we will continue to do so at a website dedicated to such content.  We will have model reviews, photographer reviews, blogs, stories, novellas, advice, forums, and other goodies in store for you.  Stay tuned for more info.

Todays image is an oldie but goodie.  One of those iconic images that I recall seeing way back in the late 90's when I was just discovering latex. 

The name "HedonsFair" will definitely be dropped in the near future - most likely early 2009.  Don't worry, for those of you who frequent the site, none of the content is disappearing although the clothing may be gone when the change takes place.  That decision has not yet been decided.

The current names that we have bought are "FetishGuardian" and "FetishBuzz".  The new site will revolve around fetish content, images, blogs, and videos - all free of course.  The feel will be that of a magazine or newspaper, so we wanted a name that reflected that.

I wanted to use the word "fetish" because I wanted to have a "keyword" in the title for search engine optomization.  I feel like HedonsFair failed because we were never able to rank well in the search engines.  Also, I've been told numerous times that we website was too "generic" looking - so we will aim to be more edgy in the next release.

Todays image is that of a fetish girl in a custom transparent and jade green latex dress.  I'm a huge fan of transparent latex and this is a very well done dress. 

Welcome  me in congratulating Girlq on her new website: pvclatexleather.com.  It's a website dedicated to fetish imagery including latex, leather, and pvc (obviously).  There's also a section dedicated to transparent vinyl, which is fairly rare to find - so I hope our viewers will enjoy the site and contribute.

I can't report much going on with HedonsFair.  Still trying to figure out which direction the website will take in the near future.  We are considering a name change, as everyone I've ever spoken with can't seem to understand or remember the name HedonsFair.  We also have "unconformist" as a domain - so our clothing line may move to there and HedonsFair may become a content destination.

Honestly, I'd like to move completely off this domain, but I have to think of another name first.  Any ideas? 

Todays image is a pic of a model who goes by the monicker, "Industrial Girl" on myspace.   She's shot almost exclusively fetish fashions, and this is a club shot of her getting licked by another fetish friend. 

It's been awhile since the last post, mainly because we have been working diligently on getting out new products.  There must be 15 products in the backlog that need to get uploaded to the website.  We also fixed a bug with the blogs not paging correctly.

The new products are as follows:

• Latex Ribbon / Bow Dress
• Latex Contrast V-Neck Dress
• Latex leggings
• Latex Geisha girl cheongsam

Over the last 6 months we've doubled our traffic to the website, but very few people are visiting our product pages - please take the time to see what we have to offer.  If you have ideas or suggestions as to how to better market or sell our products, we'd love to hear from you - drop me a comment below.

Our prices are better than you'll find anywhere else on the web, and our custom designs are worn by some of the top fetish models and simply don't exist anywhere else. The Latex contrast dress was modeled by Mosh and shot by Christine Kessler - be sure to check that one out.

Part of the reason for starting this blog was to try and jumpstart sales and get people coming to the website.  So far all we have acheived was to get a bunch of Mosh admirers visiting her blog and then immediately leaving without so much as looking at our products.

As I've said before, this website is going to undergo one more change before I throw in the towl.  We're going to move to being an information destination for all things alt, and while latex, pvc, rubber, and leather will still have a place here, we have to expand to other areas of alternative life.

Apparently there are no latex fetishists in North America.  Guess I'm the only one.  My bad for starting a business around my own interests.  Anyway, according to the Goog, there's an average of 60,500 searches per month for "rubber clothing" - latex and pvc don't rate anywhere near "rubber clothing" so goodbye to those words.

"Leather" as a keyword gets several hundred thousand searches, but the problem with leather is that mainstream people are looking for leather jackets, gloves, etc.  It's not my intention to cater to mainstream interests, but it's been 2 years of operating at a loss, and I can't continue forever without making a profit.

In 6-9 months the site will reinvent intself and clothing will be secondary to alternative news, blogs, videos, image search, forums, stories, etc.  Other areas of alternative life besides rubber fetish clothing will be focused on - this includes goth, punk, BDSM, and anything else outside the realm of vanilla.  As I'm a political science major and interested in news media, we'll have a section dedicated to all news that impacts the alternative world.

Lastly, we're going to give ebay a try as a means to sell off clothing, and if that goes well, we will continue to sell latex, pvc, rubber clothing - if we lose money or just break even we will discontinue our own line of clothing.  As a replacement I will seek contracts with other manufacturers and clothing makers to list their items for sale for no fee as a service to our visitors.

I'd like to put together a board of directors for the site.  This would be people who have an interest in what we do and payment would be in the form of free rubber clothing.  The role of director would be to meet quarterly or when called upon to discuss the site and give ideas and opinions on how to make it better.  If you are reading this and interested in such a position, drop me a line titled "directors" at: blogs@hedonsfair.com.

Yesterday I was discussing with my GF how to better increase sales, and we were talking about different marketing ideas.  Over the last year I've implemented a lot of different things to try and increase traffic - such as these blogs, the product storylines, and setting up a flickr account, and a myspace account.

However, I hadn't really been looking at whether these things had any effect, but when I checked it out the other day, traffic had gone from 17,000 hits in January of 2007 to 170,000 hits in January 2008. 

Let's be honest, who can resist cool ass images (no pun intended) like the one here.  With new content being added weekly, and more fetish latex  and vinyl images and products being shot and produced in house, how could one stay away?

To further increase sales, later this year we will be adding erotic story's dealing with your favorite subjects: latex, pvc, vinyl, leather, domination, and kinkiness in general.  These articles will be available for download as PDF's for reading you can take with you, as well as available on our site.  The story's will be similar to the product storylines, but much longer and more indepth. 

Recently I had a revelation that the website is too generic.  We have a range of items that don't really fit into one exact niche other than being latex and vinyl alternative fashions.  There are so many subcategories within the alt world that people don't really associate hedonsfair with any one particular taste.

Therefore, the plan for the end of '08 will be to split the website into two sites.  One will be for punk, alt, fashions - extending our line past just vinyl and fishnet, into everything that is anti-mainstream, alt, punk, etc.  We will probably add shoes, jewelry, magazines, and more.

The other half will be only fetish fashions geared toward the softer side of fetish.  Focusing on cute womens lingerie, lots of pastel colors and cuts that are soft and sensual. 

When you own a website it can be really hard figuring out who your customers are.  Sometimes I wonder if the content of the site is offensive to potential customers.  We have a feed on the homepage with some fairly crazy stories and content.  While I feel that most people don't even bother scrolling down to view it - have you taken a look and do you find it offensive?

I want to appeal to as broad a clientel as possible, as I feel like the fashions we sell are cool, and appealing to a range of people across all walks of life, from club goers, alt, goth, punk, and of course fans of fetish wear. 

We tend to think that everyone thinks just like us, or at least similar, but the reality is that people, cultures, and personalities are extremely different, and different people view the world they see in their own unique way that is different from me.

I find most of the content on the site to be kitsch, comical, bizarre, amusing, but not offensive.  However, I can admit that I am incredibly open-minded and accepting person.  I'd love to hear what your thoughts are...