Strap Up Custom Gear’s Lou DeLucia on Business’s Storied Journey

Lou DeLucia, owner of Denver-based Strap Up Custom Gear, has always been a lover of fashion, constantly looking at how to turn clothing and looks on their head to make them something they never were. However, as a person of size, he didn’t always see a way to truly embrace the artform in the way he wanted to.

Before launching the business, DeLucia says his role as an assistant for Project Runway’s Mondo Guerra instilled him with a bit of business sense. As the initial inklings of Strap Up Custom Gear took form, DeLucia was invited to Bear Week in Provincetown, Massachusetts back in 2015. He calls  it a “dream come true,” though he didn’t want to spend a ton of money on leather.

“A buddy of mine just came up with putting it up in seatbelt material,” DeLucia says. “And then we talked about putting in adjustability so it could fit on multiple people. When we thought back about it, we were seeing leather, brown and black. We were seeing some stylized leather and a little vinyl here and there. This was back when ‘yarnesses’ were a big thing, so there was someone literally knitting harnesses.”

Thinking of the variety of gear options already available, DeLucia recalls wondering, “Well, if that’s a thing, why wouldn’t this be?” It was a less expensive option, though DeLucia notes that he was “much larger” at the time, as a 5’7”, 350-pound person, and says size inclusion was also a big factor.

“Finding cute shit for big boys—cute things for big people—just wasn’t necessarily on the radar,” he says.

Following a few serendipitous opportunities, Strap Up Custom Gear came to fruition. With the help of his former partner, DeLucia took his chances, finding vendors that saw and supported their vision of making fetish gear accessible and customizable. Looking back on that time, and at Strap Up Custom Gear’s current standing, DeLucia reflects on the connections he’s made to communities he belongs in, bears and bigger folks, alongside people of all different backgrounds and identities.

“A friend of mine came up with this the other day, but it’s kind of like Build-A-Bear meets fetish gear. Like, you choose your style and then you trick it out however you want,” he says. “So, I’m really excited that that’s where we are now and that’s kind of where we’ve come from.”

The risk paid off, and business took off over the years. Fast-forward to 2019—DeLucia had bought out his business partner and was riding on the coattails of designing a harness for Yvie Oddly’s time on Ru Paul’s Drag Race Season 11. “My stuff was on national television, so I was rolling with it,” he says. 

Then, there was COVID-19.

“I was actually in Texas in March of 2020, at an event,” DeLucia says. “I got there on a Wednesday, we opened up on a Thursday, they shut us down on a Friday. So, I had to fly home and I literally, I put (the gear) in a bedroom, and I shut the door for about six months. I was just like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’”

He was in the mortgage business at the time, leaning heavily on long days and a role where he didn’t really have to think about a strategy. He tried out some alternative creative ventures in the meantime, like rhinestone masks, even considering using his harness materials to pivot toward pet wear.

“Then, vaccines were a thing, so I was just like, ‘Oh, no. Absolutely not. I’m gonna put the brakes on this.”

DeLucia got vaccinated and got back on the travel train in July 2021, with his first, “very small” post-COVID event in Oklahoma. He admits it wasn’t necessarily well attended but notes that his booth, along with the two leather vendors in the same room, were slammed the entire time. 

Things began picking up from there. As DeLucia reflects, he says the second half of 2021 stayed busy, even showing up to Cannonball in Fort Lauderdale, a huge, 1,700-person, pool-centered party as the only pool-safe vendor at that point.

Many may not recognize immediately the impact that COVID had on folks like DeLucia and comparable niche markets, but with no one partying or going out to events, why bother buying new gear? DeLucia says he understands that his product also relies heavily on an in-person presence, with folks about to feel and see the harnesses and material before they buy.

After hitting the ground running, he says the only uncertainty during that time was around demand.

“Is there still going to be the same thirst and need for this product after the fact?” Delucia poses. “And I am ecstatic to report that the answer is an overwhelming yes.”

Today, DeLucia continues rolling with the punches and embracing his business wholeheartedly. He was laid off from the mortgage business over the summer and is now traveling and regularly attending events for Strap Up Custom Gear.

“I couldn’t be happier,” he says. “Also, being laid off from the day job, this whole resurgence of the workforce that’s happening in the world right now, I’m 100% a part of it. I got laid off from the mortgage business, and I was like, ‘I’m not going back to that.’ For 20 years I used that as a crutch. ‘That’s my safety net; I get paid from that; I can do that with my eyes closed.’ No. I don’t want to do that anymore. I just want to move on and fulfill my dream after fulfilling someone else’s for such a long time.”

DeLucia has embraced a few new changes, noting that some of the styles have been redesigned so they are easier to pull on and off and use overall. He’s also created a brand-new, customizable, full-body harness, going down to a genital ring, up to suspender clips, with removable side straps made to fit larger bodies. 

Going forward, he’s looking to model business more along the lines of a boutique, as opposed to only carrying the same static patterns. 

“I want to introduce seasonal, updates in color, make things that people bought two years ago unavailable to people now. You know, ‘Oh you want that green and pink argyle harness? Sorry, I don’t make it anymore. Now, I have a black and pink,’ you know, something like that.”

DeLucia is also embracing the hanky codes of flagging—a decades-old practice in which gay men used handkerchiefs in certain pockets to signify the sexual acts they were interested in giving or receiving—in the future. 

“I’m creating handkerchiefs in all the major hanky code colors, so you can literally flag however you want,” he teases.

If that’s not enough, he’s now selling t-shirts and branded “side booty bags” for folks to use at events to carry their essentials. Of course, Strap Up Custom Gear also has folks covered for the festivities of spooky season, including a zombie print and stacked skulls on a black background this year.

As DeLucia sets off on this new chapter, he extends a sentiment of gratitude to those who have continued supporting him and his craft:

“I’m appreciative for the support of the community, both inside and outside of Denver—the kink community, the bear community, and the chub community—for being open to something different and for giving me a chance.”

For more from Strap Up Custom Gear, find them on Facebook and Instagram @StrapUpCustomGear or on the official website.

Photos courtesy of Dustin Lawrence/Briah Media LLC and Strap Up Custom Gear