The Bunny is back: Playboy club relaunches in Sin City

LOS ANGELES: Fifteen years after rising feminism and changing tastes saw the doors close on the last of what was once a global network of hedonistic pleasure palaces, the Playboy Club is back.

The lighting of a giant rabbit head at Las Vegas' Palms Casino resort on Friday will signal the beginning of what Playboy founder Hugh Hefner hopes will be a glitzy new era for his adult entertainment empire.

Launched in 1960, the original Playboy Clubs were a natural fit for the free-wheeling sexual revolution that exploded over the following decade.

Boasting attractive cocktail waitresses in bustieres and tights, the gambling and drinking clubs spread across the world, offering punters from New York to Tokyo the chance to be James Bond for a night.

At their peak, there were 22 Playboy clubs dotted around the globe.

Yet tighter restrictions on gambling and a shift in attitudes meant that by the mid-1980s, the clubs were past their sell-by date.

In 1991, the Playboy club's Philippines chapter closed, three years after the final club in the United States was wound up.

Now though, Hefner believes the time is ripe for a comeback.

"It's the return of the bunnies," Hefner told Time magazine, attributing a 1980s conservative backlash against the relaxed sexual mores of the swinging sixties for the chain's earlier demise.

"It is the first club-casino since the early 1980s, and it comes at a time in which the Playboy brand is very hot again," he added. "I think there's a fascination with things retro that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago."

The new Playboy club will aim to attract a high-rolling clientele, limiting the capacity to just 500.

Fun-lovers will be able to indulge in blackjack and roulette while their whims are catered for by a new generation of Playboy Bunnies who have been recruited from all over the world.

In keeping with its upmarket aspirations, the club on the top floors of the Palms 'Fantasy Tower' has been furnished opulently, with custom trappings such as alligator skin wall coverings and black crystal chandeliers.

Guests will also be able to relax at the 9,000 square-foot Hugh Hefner Sky Villa, featuring an indoor waterfall and an outdoor jacuzzi. And a revolving bed.

"When Hugh Hefner opened the original Playboy Club in 1960, it redefined class and luxury in a way that set the standard for clubs all over the world for decades to come," Palms owner George Maloof said.

The latest Playboy club will "update the style and sophistication" of Hefner's original nightclubs, Maloof said.

Not everyone is convinced Hefner is onto a winner though.

"People will go for the novelty factor, but in this day and age what's the staying power of seeing fully clothed women?" said Marc Bell, chairman of competing Penthouse Media Group, whose company own 10 strip clubs.

"It's old thinking. Ours is much more hip."