Noir Leather Owner Keith Howarth Earns Respect for Tenacity

Keith Howarth is soft-spoken, articulate and polite—a gentleman. While talking to him, it’s hard to imagine that he was a provocative button-pusher in the 1980s and '90s. Howarth is the owner of , a store that specializes in leather lingerie and latex fetish wear.

Howarth, 57, has been doing business in downtown Royal Oak now for 28 years. He opened his first store in 1983 at 117 W. Third, now the site of Hour Detroit offices.

“It was a brand-new store, and Third Street, at the time, was like a ghetto. It wasn’t real populated,” Howarth said. “I didn’t have any money, so I used my art background to come up with creative window displays.” 

One of the entrepreneur’s first ideas was to display a glass plate exhibit in his storefront window, which doesn’t sound so imaginative—until you learn that the plates had images of women’s breasts and men’s genitalia.

“It caused some of the residents and the city to get upset,” he said softly. “The police came by and asked me nicely if I would remove the plates with the men’s genitalia. I thought, ‘That’s odd. Why not ask me to remove it all?’ They said they couldn’t force me to remove any of it because it was art. It was out of their jurisdiction. So I said to them, ‘Nah, I am just going to leave it.’ ”

That was just the beginning.

When Howarth could not afford mannequins, he decided to use blowup dolls, but they wouldn't stand up. They kept falling over. His solution was to hang them with chains from the ceiling, which started some bantering.

“I had an employee whose mom was my church mole,” he said. “I would say to my employee, ‘They’re talking about me at church?’ I couldn’t believe it. Then people started sounding off to the newspapers."

Howarth said the risqué controversy worked to his benefit. The more adults complained, the more it filtered into teenage mindsets that they should see what this store is about—and they did that with “a fervor,” Howarth said.

Noir Leather’s controversial marketing continued to raise eyebrows through the '90s, and the store had to relocate a couple of times after losing leases, first to Main Street and then to its current location at the corner of Fourth and Center.

Along the way, the city passed a special events ordinance that prevented the store owner from hosting live leather lingerie fashion shows in the store's front window. Howarth said that sometimes, up to 200 window watchers gathered in front of the store.

Laura Harrison, owner of the Ladybug Shoppe and former city commissioner, called Howarth “tenacious.”

“Any retail business that goes and borrows money to start a store and sticks with it, well, that takes a lot of guts,” Harrison said.

She also pointed out that Howarth is a smart promoter. “He knows there is no such thing as bad advertising—and that the best advertising is free.”

Mayor Jim Ellison agrees that Howarth is a great self-promoter. Ellison said city government made life difficult for the Noir Leather owner, but he kept going. Despite all the pressures, the mayor said Howarth “embraced the downtown.”

There was a time when Howarth considered moving to Ferndale.

“We looked at a building, but we had problems with Ferndale, too,” he said, then laughed. “They said we were too adult for Ferndale.”

Ellison is glad Howarth stayed. “He’s perfect for Royal Oak," the mayor said. "He brings in people that are diverse. He’s contributed to the growth of downtown, and he’s a supporter. He’s always involved and does whatever you ask of him.”

After 28 years, the experimental Howarth is now regarded as part of the establishment. His wife of eight years, Kathleen Fegley, is a member of the Downtown Development Authority.

Howarth, who lives in Royal Oak, said he’s very happy he stayed. “I have no regrets,” he said. While he misses the '90s, calling it the “heyday of downtown retail,” he’s optimistic about the future.

“I see a revival of fashion coming back to downtown, with more apparel and shoe stores cropping up,” he said.

Howarth also noticed the mowhawked teenagers who used to gather in front of Caribou Coffee in the '90s, referred to as the “Corner Kids,” have moved on.

“They’re still in Royal Oak,” he said. “They’re in Gusoline Alley now.” Howarth noted the Corner Kids are now old enough to drink at the Center Street establishment that is down the street from his store.

The leather retailer says downtown nightlife attire these days is wild. “The girls dress skimpy, skimpy, skimpy, and they wear some of the highest heels I have ever seen.”

But who is he, of all people, to complain?

“I think it’s cool that women dress that way. It shows they feel very safe in Royal Oak,” he said.

Howarth seems to have adjusted nicely to his transition from pushing the limits to being embraced by city officials. His only complaint is that because of the Internet, TV and movies, the world seems to have become acclimated to the bizarre.

“There are no more buttons to push,” he said.