Could this be the iPod of sex Toys?

Conceived in San Francisco, a current hotbed of innovation, the luxurious-looking, leather-cased gadget is the brainchild of Ti Chang, a glamorous 32-year-old Royal College of Art graduate and industrial designer, and Michael Topolovac, 45, an entrepreneur with a background in launching products from computer software to underwater camera equipment.

Chang was keen to produce "something meaningful for women", while Topolovac had been inspired by female friends who refused to buy vibrators. "They complained that they were badly designed and ugly, and they had to buy them down dark alleys," he says. That's in prudish, puritanical America, though. Fortunately, in forward-thinking Britain, we have a gaudily-lit Ann Summers on every high street.

The pair met by chance at a Florida trade show and combined their experience and ambition to launch their company Crave.

"I really wanted to move away from the nasty coloured plastic, the rabbits and the dolphins, anything that could be mistaken for a child's toy," says Chang. "Women want something more elegant, especially in the bedroom." For his part, Topolovac believes entirely in Chang's talent, and refers to her as "the female Jonathan Ive" - the British-born vice-president of industrial design at Apple.

Crave, which already sells the Duet online and will stock it at London's erotic boutique Coco de Mer within weeks, is far from the first to notice the gap in the market for luxurious erotic products. US company Jimmyjane has recently introduced silicone sex toys costing upwards of $150 (£95), and Swedish company Lelo has launched a range of high-end vibrators. There is even the
C-shaped We-Vibe, $139 (£87), which claims to be for couples to use together.

By contrast, the slim, subtle, palm-sized Duet is made up of a metal handle and a two-pronged silicone, erm, other end. It is available in deep crimson, chocolate brown or black. If you spotted one lying on your sister's kitchen counter, you'd probably try to peel or light something with it.

With its two powerful but whisper-quiet motors, flatmates need never be embarrassingly alerted to its use, either.

While developing the design, the firm carried out extensive research with more than 1,000 women, to discover not merely what they wanted in a vibrator, but what their sexual goals were, for example, and how they felt about owning a sex toy.
The feedback led to some radical design details. "Women felt that batteries and chargers were a huge hassle and very indiscreet," says Topolovac. "So we designed it so it can be charged up through the USB port on a computer."

Technical questions from their sample selection followed. "Women we gave the Duet to for testing asked us if they could use it as a flash drive and store their files on it," says Chang. "We had to say, 'Erm, no' but then we thought, 'why not?'"
Thus, the luxury $189 and $349 version, with varying coverage of 24-carat gold plating, offer 8GB and 16 GB of data storage respectively. The creators, however, have not pressed too hard to find out what their customers want to store.

"We'll leave that for them to decide," says Topolovac.

For information and to buy the Duet, see lovecrave.com