Indochino.com, a custom menswear e-commerce site, is taking its Traveling Tailor retail pop-up to Toronto for the first time from May 8 to 25.
The Vancouver-based company previously launched Traveling Tailor in several U.S. markets last summer, offering one-on-one tailor appointments, fabric selection and styling consultations.
“The reason we started [the pop-up] was there were a lot of guys who wanted to connect in person,” said Kyle Vucko, Indochino co-founder and CEO. “They wanted to see and feel fabric, they wanted help measuring and most of all they just wanted help getting dressed. And for us, we learn so much about our customers by meeting and helping them in person.
“You get a ton of data being an online company, but you get an equally large but very different pool of data by just interacting with [customers],” he said.
To promote the Toronto location, Indochino hired The Siren Group, which is handling a kick-off VIP event, product publicity and placement, media relations and media tours.
Robin Rowley, manager of public relations at Indochino, said the company hires local PR agencies in many of the markets Traveling Tailor enters. “They have that deep knowledge of the local market. It’s not just about the business reporters or menswear reporters, it’s about the up-and-coming blogs and social media influencers,” she said. “They identify those key partners and help us reach out to them with our story about Traveling Tailor.”
Indochino is also launching a Facebook campaign and reaching out to its existing customer base to spread the word about the event. “Toronto has had one of our biggest fan bases since we started the company,” said Vucko. “We had a tough time finding great retail space because the market is so hot, so we’re just excited to finally get to Toronto more than anything.”
