Remember the polka-dot USB? If not, let us clue you in. Last December, a lot of fans paid £24.99 for a USB drive shaped like a butt plug, with Lily Allen's album West End Girl on it. The one ask was that fans plug it strictly into their computers and nowhere else. And if you've resisted your temptations or curiosities this long, you're in luck: Lily Allen says "this is now the real-deal."
It's the Love, Lily edit, six Lily Allen Lovehoney picks that went live on Tuesday, October 20, with Lily as postmistress of the "Lovehoney Sorting Office" in a baby-pink dress, stamping every box with her seal. The headliner is a light blue plug with white dots, co-designed by her, and the one piece in the edit that's for guys like us too. It's already sold out in the UK, but still in stock on Lovehoney US at $44.99. The West End Girl USB was a "limited merch drop" sold as a novelty for data storage only.
West End Girl came out last October, and the plug was on the album before it was on anything else. On "Pussy Palace", track 7, Lily lets herself into a partner's other apartment in the West Village and finds a Duane Reade bag with the handles tied, "sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside." What a line, she just turned this gooner into a lifelong fan. The polka dots came off the Miu Miu puffer she wears on the cover. Put the two together and you get the gift boxes at the launch dinner, then the USB, and now this. She's said they wanted it out almost a year to the day after the album, so the anniversary present is the merch joke, finished. Pop merch has gone strange for years: candles, perfume, vinyl in colors nobody asked for (her store has a cream and black polka dot one, and yes I want it), but the fans were in on this one from the start, a bit like Queen Alexis with her own Tantaly collab.
What's in the Love, Lily edit
- Polka-Dot Plug, £39.99 (US $44.99). Light blue with white dots, 3 speeds and 7 patterns, limited edition. Sold out on Lovehoney UK as I write this, still in stock on Lovehoney US.
- Heart Duo, £59.99. A red silicone heart that opens in two. Her travel pick.
- Womanizer Peach, £59.99. Peach-shaped, 14 intensity levels, comes with its own display stand.
- Womanizer Enhance, £99. The black one, 10 intensity levels.
- Pleasure Trip Wand, £74.99. Pale pink, curved, flexible neck, fully waterproof.
- Enjoy Advent Calendar (24 Day), £99. Lovehoney puts the contents at £280.76, with a Womanizer Starlet 3 behind one of the doors.
So that's the tension. Five of the six are made with women in mind, and the one that's for anybody, the one that's literally the joke we were all in on, is already gone in the UK. Annoying, and also kind of a compliment to the fanbase. US readers, you've still got a window. I wouldn't sit on it.
But if you've got someone to buy for, the rest of the edit is the most useful thing a pop star has done for men's gift shopping in a while. Lily tested all of it, picked her six and put her name on them, so the guesswork is mostly done. The Heart Duo is the one that travels. The Peach comes with a stand because she doesn't think it should be hidden in a drawer, which is a nice idea to hand someone, a present that's allowed to be out on the dresser. The Enhance is her longtime favorite, the one she wrote about in My Thoughts Exactly, and she's been working with Lovehoney and Womanizer since 2020. And the wand, she said, "looks a little like a pink microphone. Maybe because it performs?"
She picked the lineup during her London Palladium run earlier this year (S-Tier show by the way), testing in a hotel between shows to unwind. On the Lovehoney page she says toys helped her learn what she likes and then ask for it in her relationships, and she hopes the edit does that for other people. Worth a guy reading twice before he wraps one, because it lands better as an invitation than as a hint.
The advent calendar is the gift-season play, and the postmistress campaign basically gift-wraps it for you. First door opens December 1. Twenty-four doors also means you don't have to guess at one perfect thing.
Everything is on the UK edit page, with Lovehoney US and Lovehoney Australia versions too (the Enhance is $169 on the US one), and the US site is where the plug is still hanging on. Shopping for yourself after that? Our October sex doll drops are still out there.
Last year that plug was the line on the album that made everyone wince. Now it's the first thing in the edit to sell out. Is there anything more West End Girl than that? Let's pray a second run is already sitting in Lily Allen's sorting office, because this would be the perfect stocking stuffer inside a Duane Reade bag.
