BUSINESS
Leather Weather The Montrose Forge and Sir Rat Leather & Gear unveil new shops in Houston. By RYAN M. LEACH
Chip Ware (l) and Robert Campbell in front of their new boutique in The Heights. 72 NOVEMBER 2021 | OutSmartMagazine.com
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX ROSA FOR OUTSMART
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hether you like the feel of a harness buckled tightly around your shoulders and chest or some tight leather chaps that leave little to the imagination, it’s always leather weather in Houston. Two leather shops, The Montrose Forge and Sir Rat Leather, have both moved to new locations, and the local leather community is about to get a whole lot kinkier. “Leather shops have evolved so much. Before, for the gay community, a leather shop was a store selling fetish leather clothing. Nowadays, I would describe it as a store that has not only leather and fetish clothing, but a lot more items for all your needs.” says Luis Bratt, 37. Bratt and his partner, Randy Suratt, 51, recently opened Sir Rat Leather inside Ripcord, the famous Montrose leather bar on Fairview Street. They will also be opening a larger main store in the coming months after finishing renovations. The Montrose Forge is also expanding its operations, and has relocated to White Oak Drive after several years at various locations on Fairview. “We are already open and welcoming our regular customers,” says owner Chip Ware, 43. “The new space is a cute cottage with a unique charm on a corner lot—half boudoir, half dungeon. We want to give everyone the opportunity to explore.” For Sir Rat Leather, this will be their first store in Houston after building a reputation doing pop-up shops in Austin, Houston, and South Padre. When deciding on a new permanent location, they were torn between Houston and its rival city Dallas. Obviously, they made the correct decision in deciding to open their doors here. “Houston has always been a community that we wanted to be a part of,” says Bratt. “Personally, I love the bars here. We have lots of friends who were always asking when we were going to open a store here. After a year of researching, we were between Dallas and Houston, and in the beginning of September I got an email saying that the previous store at the Ripcord was having a sale and moving. At that point I tried to contact the owner of the
