2018: Our Year In Review!
- By Miss Pepper
- 12 Jan 2019
Wow, 2018 started off with a bang and it just didn't let up for the rest of the year!
We rang in the new year with a fabulous celebration of the first birthday of the formidable Melbourne Rubbermen crew! As a proud founding sponsor, we were delighted to host a cocktail party which was attended by many of Melbourne's best dressed rubberists!
2018 was also once again a huge year of events for Eagle Leather! Our Fantastic: The Party gets bigger every year, with many attendees asking us to run more parties in other parts of the year - so we took it upon ourselves to create FANTASTIC: THE ABYSS as an event at the opposite end of the year - and what a party that was, with incredible local and interstate DJs all night plus a killer set dropped by BLUSH_RESPONSE direct from Berlin; not to mention probably one of the best fetish performances Australia has ever seen when Saeborg (Japan) did their Slaughterhouse and Poo Paradise inflatable rubber performances that had to be seen to be believed!
Our regular edition of Fantastic: The Party was also another incredible sell out night, featuring a breathtaking performance by Justin Shoulder, plus other outstanding performances from Leh Ysl, Astrø, Eden Swan, Avalon & Jenna and of course fantastic regular Jay Robinson! The soundtrack was expertly provided by our first female international headliner Volvox and supported by Ben Drayton, SIMONA, SMU/DJ and DJ Luke Agius. We had the best time at this year's two FANTASTIC parties and we hope you did too!
Throughout 2018 we continued to sponsor many local and interstate groups including Bears Perth Inc., Bear Men of Adelaide, Melbourne Rubbermen, Melbourne Chargers, Vic Leather, and the KNOTbound Ltd Lending Library. We also commenced an exciting sponsorship of Harbour City Bears which we were over the moon about!
For 2018 Mardi Gras, we were the major sponsor of the Oceanic Pup and Handler 101 Dalmations Float and we also sponsored the Australian Leather and Fetish Float! We're excited to see what these two amazing floats get up to next month as well!
We believe a strong scene is one which supports each other and we also believe we are in a unique and important position as a business to support as many events and groups as we possibly can in order to really ensure Australia is on the international fetish map. A healthy scene is one which supports itself and helps itself to grow, so we sponsored a great number of events last year including local Melbourne events A Week Of Leather, Northside Bizarre, Oz Kink Fest, Slick Melbourne Rubber Week, THICK 'N' JUICY, Extra Dirty, the Richard Morrison Exhibition, Surf Vs Turf, Rescue Rainbow Railroad Fundraiser, Bound by Avalon, NEO, Show & Shine, The Eurovision Party, Girl Ang's Melbourne Teaching Intensives and Cup Eve Underwear Party at The Laird. We were also extremely proud to be co-platinum sponsor of the Australian Pup And Handler Competition alongside our friends at Lucrezia & De Sade. We again had a double stand at Fetish Expo and a stand at Northside Bizarre where we also auctioned off several items for their fundraiser and ran the hugely successful Dunk Tank, raising $2577 for JOY 94.9, Thorne Harbour Health - formerly Victorian AIDS Council and the David Williams Fund. For A Week Of Leather at The Laird, we sponsored the Jock Party and BJ presented two sold out workshops with John Cheshire and Dr George Forman-Smith, with 100% of proceeds going to Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian charitable organisation that helps lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals escape violence and persecution in their home countries. We also played host to the amazing Mistress Tokyo and a set of outstanding workshops including latex repair, takedowns, CBT and more!
We also sponsored many regional and interstate events, including the Australian Leatherman Competition (Sydney) where we donated a leather patch and sash, GEAR’d Adelaide Fetish Weekend (Adelaide), Mr and Ms Adelaide Leather where we donated two giant Eagle Leather cheques to the winners, Mr Bear Perth where we donated the winner's sash, Dorothy's Dungeon events (Adelaide), Fire and Ice events (Canberra), Underground (Sydney), Whiplash (Gippsland), and Fet In or Fuck Off (Perth). Eagle Leather co-owner Shane was also excited to be invited to take part in Mr Bear Perth as a judge, flying to Perth to take part in the weekend. Earlier in the year we also sent Brent to Sydney to judge the Australian Leatherman competition.
We also donated to support the launch of Australia's newest fetish magazine, Demasque Magazine, which launched in Melbourne last year - the second edition has just been released and is available in store now! In addition, we provided regular support and donations to The Australian Periodic Gay and Lesbian Survey.
Our in house manufacturing went from strength to strength this year with the release of three new super deluxe Pup and Handler harnesses in the last month, plus our beautiful new chap shorts! Keep an eye out for more exciting releases coming soon
2018 was an excellent competition year! We saw Matthew Shepherd win the coveted Melbourne Rubberman 2018 sash, Jason Hickford was sashed Mr Bear Perth 2018, Patrick was sashed the new Mr. Adelaide Leather 2018 and Jody became the inaugural Ms. Adelaide Leather! Leif and David won the Australian Pup and Australian Handler titles and Adelaide's James Davidson won the strongly contested Australian Leatherman title and traveled to IML to take part, where we watched him compete and cheered him all the way!
It was not just a big year for those competitions we sponsored, us but it was also a huge year for Australia when Girl Ang entered and WON the illustrious title of Ms International Leather. We have watched with awe and envy as she has traversed the world as titleholder, spreading her message of love and positivity wherever she goes. A massive congratulations to Girl Ang for this huge win for herself and for Australia!
Thank you so, so much to all of you who have supported us year in and year out and helped build this exciting brand into what it is today. We are so proud to be one of Australia's largest independent fetish stores, heading into our 25th year - and we love being a part of this incredible, vibrant community so much - we couldn't do this without you and we will NEVER take you for granted! It’s quite simple…. without you, we do not exist. You support us to do what we love and we love you for it. THANK YOU! And we look forward to an incredible year ahead!
We rang in the new year with a fabulous celebration of the first birthday of the formidable Melbourne Rubbermen crew! As a proud founding sponsor, we were delighted to host a cocktail party which was attended by many of Melbourne's best dressed rubberists!
2018 was also once again a huge year of events for Eagle Leather! Our Fantastic: The Party gets bigger every year, with many attendees asking us to run more parties in other parts of the year - so we took it upon ourselves to create FANTASTIC: THE ABYSS as an event at the opposite end of the year - and what a party that was, with incredible local and interstate DJs all night plus a killer set dropped by BLUSH_RESPONSE direct from Berlin; not to mention probably one of the best fetish performances Australia has ever seen when Saeborg (Japan) did their Slaughterhouse and Poo Paradise inflatable rubber performances that had to be seen to be believed!
Our regular edition of Fantastic: The Party was also another incredible sell out night, featuring a breathtaking performance by Justin Shoulder, plus other outstanding performances from Leh Ysl, Astrø, Eden Swan, Avalon & Jenna and of course fantastic regular Jay Robinson! The soundtrack was expertly provided by our first female international headliner Volvox and supported by Ben Drayton, SIMONA, SMU/DJ and DJ Luke Agius. We had the best time at this year's two FANTASTIC parties and we hope you did too!
Throughout 2018 we continued to sponsor many local and interstate groups including Bears Perth Inc., Bear Men of Adelaide, Melbourne Rubbermen, Melbourne Chargers, Vic Leather, and the KNOTbound Ltd Lending Library. We also commenced an exciting sponsorship of Harbour City Bears which we were over the moon about!
For 2018 Mardi Gras, we were the major sponsor of the Oceanic Pup and Handler 101 Dalmations Float and we also sponsored the Australian Leather and Fetish Float! We're excited to see what these two amazing floats get up to next month as well!
We believe a strong scene is one which supports each other and we also believe we are in a unique and important position as a business to support as many events and groups as we possibly can in order to really ensure Australia is on the international fetish map. A healthy scene is one which supports itself and helps itself to grow, so we sponsored a great number of events last year including local Melbourne events A Week Of Leather, Northside Bizarre, Oz Kink Fest, Slick Melbourne Rubber Week, THICK 'N' JUICY, Extra Dirty, the Richard Morrison Exhibition, Surf Vs Turf, Rescue Rainbow Railroad Fundraiser, Bound by Avalon, NEO, Show & Shine, The Eurovision Party, Girl Ang's Melbourne Teaching Intensives and Cup Eve Underwear Party at The Laird. We were also extremely proud to be co-platinum sponsor of the Australian Pup And Handler Competition alongside our friends at Lucrezia & De Sade. We again had a double stand at Fetish Expo and a stand at Northside Bizarre where we also auctioned off several items for their fundraiser and ran the hugely successful Dunk Tank, raising $2577 for JOY 94.9, Thorne Harbour Health - formerly Victorian AIDS Council and the David Williams Fund. For A Week Of Leather at The Laird, we sponsored the Jock Party and BJ presented two sold out workshops with John Cheshire and Dr George Forman-Smith, with 100% of proceeds going to Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian charitable organisation that helps lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals escape violence and persecution in their home countries. We also played host to the amazing Mistress Tokyo and a set of outstanding workshops including latex repair, takedowns, CBT and more!
We also sponsored many regional and interstate events, including the Australian Leatherman Competition (Sydney) where we donated a leather patch and sash, GEAR’d Adelaide Fetish Weekend (Adelaide), Mr and Ms Adelaide Leather where we donated two giant Eagle Leather cheques to the winners, Mr Bear Perth where we donated the winner's sash, Dorothy's Dungeon events (Adelaide), Fire and Ice events (Canberra), Underground (Sydney), Whiplash (Gippsland), and Fet In or Fuck Off (Perth). Eagle Leather co-owner Shane was also excited to be invited to take part in Mr Bear Perth as a judge, flying to Perth to take part in the weekend. Earlier in the year we also sent Brent to Sydney to judge the Australian Leatherman competition.
We also donated to support the launch of Australia's newest fetish magazine, Demasque Magazine, which launched in Melbourne last year - the second edition has just been released and is available in store now! In addition, we provided regular support and donations to The Australian Periodic Gay and Lesbian Survey.
Our in house manufacturing went from strength to strength this year with the release of three new super deluxe Pup and Handler harnesses in the last month, plus our beautiful new chap shorts! Keep an eye out for more exciting releases coming soon
2018 was an excellent competition year! We saw Matthew Shepherd win the coveted Melbourne Rubberman 2018 sash, Jason Hickford was sashed Mr Bear Perth 2018, Patrick was sashed the new Mr. Adelaide Leather 2018 and Jody became the inaugural Ms. Adelaide Leather! Leif and David won the Australian Pup and Australian Handler titles and Adelaide's James Davidson won the strongly contested Australian Leatherman title and traveled to IML to take part, where we watched him compete and cheered him all the way!
It was not just a big year for those competitions we sponsored, us but it was also a huge year for Australia when Girl Ang entered and WON the illustrious title of Ms International Leather. We have watched with awe and envy as she has traversed the world as titleholder, spreading her message of love and positivity wherever she goes. A massive congratulations to Girl Ang for this huge win for herself and for Australia!
Thank you so, so much to all of you who have supported us year in and year out and helped build this exciting brand into what it is today. We are so proud to be one of Australia's largest independent fetish stores, heading into our 25th year - and we love being a part of this incredible, vibrant community so much - we couldn't do this without you and we will NEVER take you for granted! It’s quite simple…. without you, we do not exist. You support us to do what we love and we love you for it. THANK YOU! And we look forward to an incredible year ahead!
