Life is about to get a little tamer for the Rampant Rabbit. The best-known sex toy could find itself relegated to a quieter corner of Ann Summers shops as the retailer tones down its raunchy image in an attempt to move upmarket.

The chain plans to distance itself from its more exotic merchandise and focus on luxury lingerie in an attempt to widen the customer base and bring in more couples.

Jacqueline Gold, the chief executive, said: “I don't want sex toys in the front half of stores. We have families walking past. We're not looking to shock or upset people.”

Ms Gold will unveil the radical shift in the brand's outlook when opening Ann Summers's newly refurbished flagship store on Oxford Street, London, on Friday.

The pleasure goods will be relegated to the lower floor while customers will find only underwear, in a distinctly more sober guise, on the ground floor.

In the remaining stores nationwide, the sex toys and other accessories that have made the Ann Summers name will be moved to the back.

Sex toys will not feature in any window displays. Ms Gold said: “The new concept will be much more luxurious and glamorous. Before it felt more clinical, old-fashioned. Now it is softer, with a boudoir feel.”

Ms Gold took over the business from her father in 1987 and transformed its fortunes.

At the time 90 per cent of the customers were men, and Ms Gold has been credited with creating a shopping destination for women comfortable about seeking ways to improve their sex lives. Today women constitute 80 per cent of customers in the company's 132 stores.

However, Ann Summers has come in for constant criticism. The chain was forced to close a store in Perth last year after parents complained about window displays. Ken Livingstone banned ads for a new version of the Rampant Rabbit on the London Underground nine months ago.

Figures filed at Companies House last year showed that Ann Summers's pre-tax profits in 2006 halved to £1.5million amid greater competition from Boots and Superdrug, which stocked a limited range of sex toys.

Ms Gold told The Times that the brand had to move on, adding that the changes were an attempt to counter the slowdown on the high street. “We need to meet as many needs as we can; customers are so much more sophisticated than they used to be,” she said.

The new store on Oxford Street will set about attracting more couples with a “softer” message. Changing rooms will include a peep-hole window, designed specifically for women shopping with their partners.

There will also be a shift away from erotic underwear, with far more emphasis on Knickerbox, the lingerie label that Ann Summers bought eight years ago.

Ms Gold said: “We are deliberately going down the fashion route. We have always been led by social trends, and lingerie these days is worn to be seen.

“You can wear it under a jacket and we bear that in mind. We don't want to be a one-trick pony - we keep pace with fashion trends.”

Summers time

£110m
Ann Summers turnover in 2006

£160
price of X-Pole, a pole-dancing kit

7,500
number of Ann Summers party organisers

3m
number of vibrators sold every year

1
bullet sent through the post when Ann Summers opened in Dublin

Source: The Times archive

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