Yummy Gummy Latex to return under new German owners

Yummy Gummy Latex founder Rebecca Allsop models catsuit made from her snakeskin-patterned sheeting (photo: Keith Barker)

YUMMY GUMMY LATEX TO RETURN UNDER NEW GERMAN OWNERS

In news released at the end of July that has delighted designers and wearers of latex fashion, Yummy Gummy Latex, the British artisan sheet latex brand specialising in multicoloured and patterned latex sheeting, is to be revived later this year under new German ownership.

Some 18 months after the shock announcement that she was putting Yummy Gummy up for sale, founder Rebecca Allsop (above) has revealed that the Yummy Gummy business, including its specialist production equipment, has been sold to the Leipzig-based designer brand Se’tyo. Rebecca had originally hoped to sell the business to a British buyer, but although there was some initial interest from within the UK, ultimately it all came to nothing. Fortunately, earlier this year, Se’tyo partners Ruka and Yuki reached out to her from Leipzig.

“They were very keen and came to view the workshop,” says Rebecca. “We spoke about the legacy of Yummy Gummy and I felt confident that they understood what Yummy Gummy was and could be. They were sensitive to it being ‘my baby’ and realised that they would need to learn a lot to be able to do it justice.”

The visit resulted in a deal being struck, and Rebecca has been busily packing everything up for shipping out to Leipzig. She’ll be moving there herself, too, for six months, to train up the new owners in the dark art of custom latex sheet design and production. Yuki and Ruka aim to have the first products from the new German manufacturing operation available this autumn, and thence to gear up as swiftly as possible to offer the “full Yummy Gummy experience”.

The legend of Rebecca Allsop’s Yummy Gummy

Three examples of Yummy Gummy Latex dresses made using the brand’s own sheeting

Rebecca Allsop founded Yummy Gummy Latex ten years ago, starting out as a ‘spare room’ operation applying the knowledge she had acquired through collaborations with Rainbow Skin, an earlier specialist latex producer.

Her existing connections as a fetish model — and Yummy Gummy’s arrival at a time when garment designers and their customers were becoming more receptive to colourful experimentation — helped create demand for her handmade products. Designers started using them either as a complete alternative to mass-produced, single-colour latex, or for contrasting panels within a whole garment.

A major deal to supply the now defunct British label Latex 101 greatly increased Yummy Gummy’s exposure to the latex-buying public. It also allowed Rebecca to launch her own Yummy Gummy Clothing range — which Latex 101 manufactured for her, using her own latex.

When Latex 101 suddenly collapsed in 2019, it was bought by Dutch fetish designer/manufacturer/distributor Peter Domenie, ending Yummy Gummy’s relationship with the Latex 101 brand.

This in itself was not a huge setback for Rebecca, as she was by then supplying her sheet latex to scores of latex designers in the UK and beyond. And she had also secured the services of Beth Parkin, who’d been responsible for Yummy Gummy’s pattern-cutting and garment assembly at Latex 101, to continue making her clothing range.

Why Yummy Gummy Latex went up for sale

A random selection of 15 original Yummy Gummy Latex sheet designs that were available to latex garment makers during its ten-year life as a UK brand

So how did such an obvious success story end up with the business being put up for sale? In a nutshell, it seems that the fever pitch at which Allsop had been working to keep up with demand for her sheet latex finally took its toll around the end of 2019, shortly before the covid pandemic struck. And unexpectedly gifted with time for introspection, she eventually realised she had fallen out of love with the thing she’d created.

Nevertheless it took her another three years to finally get to the point of deciding to publicly announce that for her, Yummy Gummy was over. “This has been a long time coming,” she said in a statement at the end of January 2023. “I am moving on to the next chapter of my life and I've been trying to do too much in the last year and something has to give.”

The final nail in the coffin was apparently the cold snap in December 2022 that froze and denatured her stock of liquid latex. “I wanted to close my sheet latex soonish and keep the clothing going,” she explained, “but because of the denatured latex, I have made the difficult decision not to buy more liquid latex so that I can concentrate on new projects.”

But it was to be another “nerve-wracking” 18 months — during which Rebecca seriously considered “trashing and recycling it all just to create closure for myself” — before Se’tyo finally made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

About new owners Se’tyo of Leipzig

Yuki (left) and Ruka of Leipzig-based Se’tyo are gearing up to produce the first German-made Yummy Gummy Latex products this autumn

Se’tyo’s Leipzig-based owners Yuki (above left) and Ruka (above right) have said that when they first approached Rebecca, they feared Yummy Gummy would already have found a new home. So they were delighted to discover that the business was still on the market and that after talking to them, Rebecca felt they could provide a suitable new home for the brand she’d founded. As its new owners, they say, “We are absolutely motivated to carry on the spirit and creativity of Yummy Gummy.”

Se’tyo was originally conceived purely as a garment design business, but Ruka and Yuki had found it challenging to get the material they needed for their design ideas. They began thinking in terms of integrating some sort of latex sheet production into the business. And with the acquisition of Yummy Gummy, that ambition can now become a reality.

They have rented a workshop and restructured their original plans for the design business in order to be able to carry out both sheet production and garment design/manufacture. “We also have a lot of ideas for new things,” the couple add, “but we still need to set up the workshop and get things running.” They have promised to keep us all informed of their progress via social media.

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