Christine Le duc

Christine le Duc is a Dutch erotic retail chain founded in Amsterdam in 1968 by Hans Hartog. It began as a single shop on the Wallen, the city's red-light district, selling magazines and super 8 films, and it grew into a national chain of shops selling lingerie, toys and adult products. Since September 2021 it has been owned by EQOM Group, the parent company of the online retailer EasyToys. Its web shop sells lingerie under its own Christine le Duc label alongside other brands.

A shop on the Wallen, 1968

Hartog, the son of a postal worker from Volendam, opened the first Christine le Duc in 1968 on the Wallen. The late 1960s were the moment when the Netherlands, along with Denmark, loosened its rules on erotic material faster than almost anywhere else in Europe, and Amsterdam's old harbor district became the center of a new trade. The first stock was what a sex shop of the period sold: erotic magazines, booklets and super 8 films.

The shop later moved out of the red-light district to the Reguliersdwarsstraat and the Spui, in the central shopping streets. That move says a lot about the brand's direction. A shop on the Spui was trying to reach ordinary shoppers rather than the visitors to the Wallen.

From magazines to lingerie and toys

Over the following decades the stock shifted. Printed material and film gave way to vibrators and other sexual wellness products, and lingerie took up a larger share of the floor. By 2000 Christine le Duc had branches in several dozen Dutch cities, making it the best-known name in its trade in the country.

The lingerie side is the reason the chain appears in this encyclopedia. The current web shop has a full intimates department: bras, bodysuits, babydolls, stockings, sleepwear and robes. Much of it falls in the boudoir category, sheer mesh, lace sets, open-cup and wet-look pieces in leather and vinyl, but there is also plain nightwear. The shop carries a house collection under the Christine le Duc name and stocks outside brands, among them the British chain Ann Summers, which built a similar business in the United Kingdom.

Christine le Duc under Beate Uhse

In December 2003 Hartog sold the company to Beate Uhse, the German erotic retailer founded in 1946 by the aviator Beate Uhse-Rotermund. At the time Beate Uhse described itself as the largest adult retail group in the world. The fit seemed logical: a German group with stores across Europe buying the leading Dutch chain.

It did not last. Beate Uhse's sales fell from about 280 million euros in 2004 to 128 million euros in 2015, as free internet pornography destroyed the market for paid erotic media. Christine le Duc's store count followed the same curve, from a peak of 31 shops in early 2015 to 21 in 2018. In August 2017 Beate Uhse sold the chain to a group of Dutch investors who were not named publicly. Four months later, in December 2017, Beate Uhse itself filed for insolvency.

Christine le Duc and EasyToys

By 2021 Christine le Duc was down to five stores. In September of that year it was bought by EQOM Group, the parent of EasyToys, a Dutch online retailer of sex toys. The deal reversed the old order of the trade: an internet business buying a bricks-and-mortar name with half a century of recognition.

The company's site today lists an address in Veendam, in the province of Groningen, and describes Christine le Duc as a Dutch retailer founded in 1968 with "more than half a century of experience." It stresses discreet packaging and what it calls a woman-friendly focus, a long way from the magazine shop on the Wallen. Hans Hartog died in April 2024, at 82.

Year	Event
1968	First shop opens on the Wallen, Amsterdam
2000	Branches in several dozen Dutch cities
2003	Sold to Beate Uhse (December)
2015	Peak of 31 stores
2017	Sold to Dutch investors (August)
2021	Bought by EQOM Group, owner of EasyToys (September)
2024	Founder Hans Hartog dies (April)

The chain's history follows the whole arc of the European adult trade, from print and film to lingerie and toys, and finally to the web retailer that bought it.

Last updated October 7, 2026