MARTINPATRICK3 FOCUSES ON BUILDING COMMUNITY AT WEEKEND EVENT

This past weekend, Minneapolis, Minnesota-based menswear specialty retailer MartinPatrick3 held its celebrated Behind the Brands event with men’s trade show Liberty Fairs.

The two-day, in-store event featured 12 brands that exhibit at Liberty along with highlights from local vendors. Participating brands included: Boglioli, The Brooklyn Circus, Freenote, Hex, Jack Mason, Krammer & Stoudt, Miansai, Moods of Norway, Nudie, Orlebar Brown, Red Wing Heritage, and Shwood.

“Our in-store events continue to get bigger and better every time because we want to out-do ourselves for the sake of the customer,” says Erick DeLeon, store manager and buyer for MartinPatrick3. “We want our clients to have a different experience every time they come to the store.  The amount of engagement is really what made me proud.  To see clients learning from our vendors and gaining some knowledge while building loyalty to a brand and store is more important.  It really warmed my heart to see that. I think in reverse it’s great for our brands to be with their clients too while creating new ones.”

The vendors that participated shared DeLeon’s positive sentiment of the weekend. “We had a great sell-though and sold a nice mix of denim, chinos, and our wovens,” reflects Andrew Brodrick, founder of Freenote.  “The store was as packed as can be, and I was able to interact directly with each and every Freenote customer past, present, and future.  For the founder of the brand to have the opportunity to do this is huge.  Like most, I am non-stop working 7-days-a-week and utterly slammed during the weekdays.  The fact that I could fly in from California and attend this event for the weekend was a great opportunity for the brand.  I could not have been more pleased and stoked.”

Sharifa Murdock, co-owner of Liberty, maintains that the goal of this event was to help build relationships between the makers and the consumers and to help foster a sense of community. “The Liberty Fairs experience at MartinPatrick3 brought to life the communal feeling and connectivity of makers and consumers that we feel at Liberty,” she says. “It was great to see a top-tier retailer understanding the importance of creating an extra layer of connectivity between their customer and the products they consume. It was truly commerce in action in the best way I’ve seen in a long time, great energy, beautiful product and a stunning store environment.”

Adds DeLeon: “We just like highlighting what is great about this town.”