A 21-year industry veteran, TLA Entertainment Group functions as the umbrella organization for several divisions that include an adult entertainment unit, a mail order unit, a direct-to-video division, and a handful of video stores in Philadelphia and New York. The company also runs an award-winning DVD retail site that is one of the largest international sites for gay and lesbian films, including porn and mainstream releases.
The company's film distribution label, TLA Releasing, specializes in independent, gay, and foreign films, many of which are released theatrically, and all of which are released in DVD and VHS format.
Andrew Preis of TLA told XBiz that TLA Style was initially launched last November, but after careful consideration, the company decided to re-launch it with a more consistent focus on the gay male community.
"We wanted to go a little more upscale and create an ideal site for the gay male or the metro sexual," Preis told XBiz.
Being touted as a "virtual department store," TLA Style merchandise has been ramped up in quality, uniqueness, and according to Preis, is unlike anything users will be able to find anywhere else offline or online.
"What we have done is taken the former site and focused its products a little more tightly, expanded its merchandise, and made the navigation much easier," Preis told XBiz. "It has a more modern urban gay sensibility, but not exclusively so. There is something for lesbians and straight couples as well that have a certain degree of sophistication."
According to Preis, the site's first launch offered only several hundred products to choose from, but the new and improved TLA Style features products in fashion, accessories, home furnishings, and imported gifts.
"Anybody can find something that they will like there," said Richard A. Wolff, a TLA partner. "Especially if you are a gay."
Some of TLA Style's products and merchandise will be made available through TLA's mail order catalog business.