If you’ve ever strolled by one of the ballrooms at the Ritz Charles during Jennifer Hermon’s Haute Market events, it would be easy to mistake the high-energy shopping frenzy for a party.
Women with a Cosmopolitan cocktail in one hand and a fashion-forward purse in the other intently browse racks and tables merchandised with stylish clothing and accessories, sometimes stopping for a massage, makeover or hair extensions. Pulsating runway music serves as a backdrop to the colorful scene and Hermon circulates like a nervous host ensuring her guests’ comfort.
A sophisticated party atmosphere is exactly what fashionista entrepreneur Hermon envisioned with her quarterly Haute (pronounced “hot”) Market happenings. Created as a premiere shopping party where women pay a $10 cover charge to shop to their label-hungry heart’s content from some of the area’s most cutting-edge boutiques, jewelry artists and fashion experts, Haute Market celebrates its fourth anniversary in July. It has an enviable track record for a business launched immediately prior to the compromised economic climate, growing from its debut shopping party with 100 attendees to a record-setting event with 725 shoulder-to-shoulder eager shoppers.
“Our first event was at a small studio about the size of four large walk-in closets in July 2006,” says Hermon. “We showcased eight vendors and had goody bags as giveaways. The women loved seeing coast-worthy designer fashion, meeting the boutique owners and shopping in a huge trunk-show setting.”
Haute Market’s second shopping party was in fall 2006 at Bacchanalia in Overland Park, and Hermon knew her concept had caught on when she saw the line of excited shoppers snake around the building.
“Our Fall Roundup sold out that year,” says Hermon. “We featured 13 boutiques, and I knew the buzz about Haute Market would continue.”
Haute Market outgrew Bacchanalia, and Hermon found the Ritz Charles, a large, hotel-like venue in Overland Park that’s convenient and offered the savvy businesswoman the perfect platform for her shopping parties. Now Haute Market hosts three annual four-hour shopping extravaganzas: February’s “get-out-of-the-house party;” July’s anniversary bash; and October’s partnership with breast cancer awareness. Some shopping parties have New York-style runway fashion shows and most offer swag bags filled with products and offers from vendors.
Haute Market is targeted to women from across the metro area—busy moms, career-track women, active women—and Hermon was careful to design a logo with elements that appealed to a woman’s craving to be pampered, desire for up-to-the-minute beauty advice and individual fashion sensibility. The visuals for Haute Market are pink and feminine, and women readily identify with the stiletto heel that appears in many of the business’s online and shopping party promotions.
Hermon’s business has built its success via the channels of viral marketing and social media, including Facebook and Twitter. She writes a weekly blog titled “Fashion 411” by Haute Weekly that is an online fashion and beauty guidebook packed with offers, advice and information on sales and seasonal trends. In early January, she hosted a Twitter party where hundreds of captivated Haute Weekly followers read fashion advice tweets.
“We asked what three beauty products would be essential if you were stranded somewhere,” says Hermon. “We then offered tips and trends and even had a contest to name our new mascot.”
In addition to the shoppers who get real, wearable fashion at great prices, Haute Market introduces local fledgling boutiques and designers that might not otherwise get exposure on such a mass, word-of-mouth level. Hermon has her pulse on the city’s up-and-comers and likes to get them on board with the Haute Market shows.
“It’s terrific to get other entrepreneurs involved,” says Hermon. “A lot of competitors end up networking and helping each other out or collaborating, which is good for everyone’s business.”
Missy Hutton, owner of the Johnson County boutique hit Two Chic Blvd., was one of Hermon’s first Haute Market vendors. When Hutton signed on to participate in the first shopping party in 2006 her business was home-based, and a brick-and-mortar shop wasn’t in her immediate plans.
“The quality exposure I received from the Haute Market events helped launch my first storefront at 161st and Metcalf,” says Hutton. “And the non-traditional shopping venue that attracts north Kansas City women convinced me I needed a second retail location, which opens in March.”
Hutton’s business even extends to the Omaha area where she has a group of loyal fans who attend Haute Market and in between the shopping gigs order online from Two Chic Blvd.
Hermon travels to New York City’s famous Fashion Week twice yearly where she sees models strut fashions that inspire the more wearable interpretations shipped to Kansas City stores and carry more affordable price tags. She considers it her solemn responsibility as the owner of Haute Market to carry the big-city news back to the style-conscious women of the Midwest.
Hermon has set her sights on expanding into minor markets. Currently,v Haute Market has an Omaha vendor who travels to Overland Park to display at the shopping parties and receives a warm welcome from Hermon’s customers. Hermon’s staff has expanded to include an East Coast fashion expert, a public relations guru and a social media navigator—all part of her mission to educate big-city design and beauty industry pros that the Midwest has sophisticated women with a sense for alluring fashion.
The unflappable Hermon has established herself as a style expert and a consultant to boutique fashion businesses that want a broad brush stroke of exposure to an instantly adoring fan base.
She cites the upcoming Feb. 21 Haute Weekly at the Ritz Charles, billing it as an “escape-from-cabin-fever evening,” as an example of the ongoing event’s cult-like popularity.
“Women will be frantic by the end of February for a night out with girlfriends and the opportunity to purchase hot spring designs,” says Hermon.
The high priestess of Kansas City fashion should know: February’s Haute Market will be Hermon’s 16th shopping party, which she expects to be a resounding sell-out.
For more information on Haute Market and Haute Weekly visit www.hauteweekly.com.
words: Kimberly Winter Stern
photos: Laurel D. Austin