Playboy clubs to open in India - but no nudity allowed
Playboy Enterprises, that bastion of scantily clad bunny-women, will start opening clubs, cafes, hotels and retail outlets in India starting next month.
But the businesses in the deeply religious country, where the raunchy magazine is still banned, will be decidedly more tame than the bosomy fare offered in the U.S.
Mumbai-based PB Lifestyle has the exclusive brand license to open more than 120 Playboy centers over the next decade, Chief Executive Sanjay Gupta told Indian publication Economic Times. The first, a 22,000-square-foot club in the Goa beach region, will launch in mid-December.
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But the venue will be as close to squeaky clean as Playboy can get, focusing more on the upscale lifestyle and glamorous sensibility popularized by the magazine than the fleshy models adorning its pages, Gupta told The Times.
India’s middle class is growing and developing new spending habits. Starbucks recently opened a luxurious new store near a Hermes shop in a well-heeled Mumbai neighborhood – its first outpost in the country. But the Indian culture remains a conservative one.
In the Goa Playboy club, the classic bunny costumes worn by the waitresses, barely more than a satin strapless bodysuit, will be toned down to meet Indian cultural standards.
“We are clear about one thing: There will absolutely be no nudity,” Gupta said. “The bunnies will be suited to Indian sensibilities and moral values.”
They’d better be, according to Goa’s government.
“They may brand the club as Playboy but if they indulge in obscenity, vulgarity or nudity, then we will withdraw their permission immediately,” Nikhil Desai, Goa’s director of tourism, told AFP.
Playboy magazine, now nearly 60 years old, made waves this summer when Bollywood actress Sherlyn Chopra became the first Indian-born woman ever chosen to strip to her birthday suit for the publication.
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