Aug. 31--Trunk Club, the Chicago-based personal shopping apparel service, has quietly opened a second location in Highland Park to test its new focus on custom-made clothing and to bring the service closer to dapper suburbanites who prefer an in-person experience instead of getting shipped "trunks" of clothes to try on at home.
A second satellite custom shop, called a Custom Club, is planned for Hinsdale to cater to the western suburbs, said Michael Barkin, vice president of Trunk Club's custom business.
"What we learned -- and what was our instinct from the beginning -- was that if we could serve people in person, the relationship becomes even better than it could be over the phone or through the mail," Barkin said. "It's just a better experience."
Both new sites -- models for how such remote clubs will be rolled out to other cities -- will act as remote fitting rooms that allow customers to skip the drive to Trunk Club's downtown showroom in River North.
They will also emphasize custom-made clothing, which officials say is the future of Trunk Club. The prices won't be much more than the store's off-the-rack garments, which tend to be higher-end.
While Trunk Club was started in 2009 as a service for men, it recently announced a new strategy of also catering to women, who can use the new remote locations, Barkin said.
The emphasis on custom-made clothing and the move into women's apparel were strategies advocated by Trunk Club's owner, Seattle-based retail giant Nordstrom, which bought the Chicago startup a year ago but operates it as a separate business.
Trunk Club has traditionally used stylists to handpick clothes matching a customer's size, style and fit preference and ship them directly to the customer to try on at home. Customers pay only for what they keep and send the rest back. There are no membership or styling fees.
Trunk Club expanded from the shipping model to also establish "clubhouses" in Chicago, its biggest and most successful location, as well as New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Dallas.
At clubhouses, customers meet their stylists in person, while getting free drinks and trying on clothes.
The success of those clubhouses is partly the reason for expanding to a remote location at 583 Central Ave. in north suburban Highland Park.
"We thought, North Shore is producing a bunch of clients for us, let's make it easier for these guys to engage with our business," Barkin said. "Instead of guys having to come downtown, we put it in their backyard."
In the six weeks the Highland Park location has been open, about half the customers are new to Trunk Club, Barkin said. And early feedback from existing customers from the northern suburbs is they would be willing to buy more often from Trunk Club because the new location is more convenient.
"It's better for them because they don't have to deal with the hassles of going into the city," Barkin said.
For the same reason, Trunk Club is negotiating a lease in Hinsdale, with expectations of opening that location within the next two months, Barkin said.
The satellite locations are much smaller and don't carry the inventory of the Chicago clubhouse location. They are viewed as remote fitting areas, which can be used to try on off-the-rack clothing that the stylists retrieve ahead of the appointment from the Chicago clubhouse.
However, the emphasis is on Trunk Club's custom business, which was previously subcontracted. It has become a focus over the past eight to 10 months and is the fastest-growing part of Trunk Club, Barkin said.
"It's something we believe is a big part of the future of our business," he said. "Dollar for dollar, there's nothing that comes close to a garment that's made one-by-one."
Trunk Club takes 26 measurements to create an individual pattern for each customer and keeps them on file.
Generally, men don't want to be too involved with the design process, Barkin said. But if they want a specific collar or pocket, they can help design that. For shirts alone, they can choose from among some 4,000 color and pattern swatches.
A suit might cost $850 or $10,000, Barkin said.
"There's an ability to make clothes, personalized for you one-by-one for roughly the same prices you would pay for off-the-rack clothing, depending on the brands that you're used to buying," Barkin said. "There's a perception that custom-made clothing is outrageously expensive and is totally unnecessary. That might have been the case 10 years ago, but now it's accessible for most people who are buying middle- to higher-end clothing."
And from a business standpoint, officials have learned that customers are more "sticky" -- likely to purchase from Trunk Club again -- after they buy custom clothing because it evokes more emotion.
"The fit, for sure, is going to be better," Barkin said. "And you're going to have unique design characteristics that you got to pick out, and with that comes a feeling of pride or confidence."
The tailoring business -- but not the full Trunk Club service -- will also reside as Trunk Club locations within two Nordstrom stores, on Michigan Avenue in Chicago and in Oak Brook, Barkin said.
gkarp@tribpub.com
