Most of the retail headlines we’ve seen have focused on two types of shopping: brick-and-mortar and e-commerce. But that myopic view leaves out the various other ways people engage with fashion, like trunk shows and home shopping events. Consider Sarah Easley’s two-year-old endeavour, Maison Marché, which essentially creates a pop-up shop in your living room—and introduces you and your friends to a few dozen independent or emerging designers in the process. Most of her events, or “fêtes,” as she calls them, take place in New York and throughout the tri-state area, but she’s brought her “fashion circus” as far as Aspen and Mexico City. Wherever she goes, the takeaway is the same: “There’s an authenticity to it, and it’s completely based in reality,” Easley says. “It’s wonderful designers in pretty spaces, surrounded by your friends.”
That sounds particularly nice right about now, since most of us haven’t seen our friends in months (let alone gone shopping with them). But Maison Marché has been affected by the coronavirus just like any “store”; Easley’s last event took place in early March, and she swiftly cancelled everything she’d booked for April, May, and June. “I hit a full pause,” she says. “But slowly and surely, brands started reaching out to me, and my clients were reaching out too.” Designers who had just received their spring collections had nowhere to sell them and hoped Easley might be able to help, while clients were coming to her for a mood-boosting pair of earrings or a fun blouse to wear on Zoom calls. So she began experimenting with a virtual fête through Instagram, sharing one independent designer a week and taking orders directly from her followers. “It’s a very engaged group of women,” she says. “I’ve sold about 25 units a week, which is typically what we sell before lunch at an event. But I’m so happy to support these designers in a small way, and my clients are super happy.”
Easley also has a team of freelance stylists who are staying in touch with clients and facilitating sales when necessary. That personal connectivity is no doubt a huge part of Maison Marché’s success. But Easley’s edit of brands is also key: She’s passionate about supporting small-batch, artisanal, and sustainable designers, and is careful to avoid “mood overlap” between brands. There might be a casual, utilitarian label like Nili Lotan next to a more bohemian one, like Warm or Isla & White; the goal is to avoid redundancies and the frustration caused by the choice overload of e-comm sites with their daily new arrivals. With most of her customers at home, Easley is promoting items with relaxed silhouettes, joyful prints, easy care—i.e., no dry cleaning—and friendly price points, mostly in the $300 range. “My team and I are posting on Instagram, sending photos [via text], and trying to tell the brand’s story digitally,” she says. “It’s been working really well for us.”
Easley doesn’t have a website, but is working on building one so more people can participate in future fêtes. She’ll continue her virtual sales throughout the next few weeks and is tentatively planning home events for July—with plenty of new protocols and social distancing measures in place. “I’m going to use a lot of outdoor space, so we can set up racks by the pool or on the lawn, and we’ll stagger appointments throughout the day so you really can be six feet apart,” she explains. “In most cases, these homes are pretty spread out. So I think it’s going to be more about keeping your distance than using tons of Purell and masks and not touching. But ultimately, the tone will be set by the host, because it’s her home and her community. I don’t ask hosts to do this—they ask me, and they invite their friends. So anyone who isn’t ready [to meet in person again] can wait until our next event in the fall.”
Still, most of us would probably rather shop at a friend’s house than at the local mall. That goes back to Easley’s initial inspiration for Maison Marché: After years of working as a buyer and retailer—she cofounded Kirna Zabete and sold her half of the company in 2016—she became acutely aware of how our shopping habits were changing. “So many people I knew were not going into stores anymore, and they were just having this lonely experience of shopping online,” she says. “But they also weren’t taking a risk on a new brand, because they didn’t know if the fabric was good, or what size they should get. And no one was shopping with a sister or friend anymore, because everyone is just too busy. But no one tells you the truth like your best friend! So my idea was to bring all of those things together.”
With the fate of department stores and physical stores in the balance, Easley’s nimble, ephemeral business model is primed for what comes next. “I feel really good about the Maison Marché model on the other side of this new world,” she says. “Unfortunately, I don’t think a lot of stores will be able to reopen, and I don’t think people are going to be jumping on planes to go shop in big cities soon. But they’ll be happy to go to a neighbour’s house down the street and shop globally there.”
Feature Image Credit: A recent “fête” by Maison Marché in a client’s home.Photo: Andrea Ceraso / Courtesy of Maison Marché
