Client Spotlight: Jeremy Smith, Co-Founder of Standard & Strange
We caught up with Jeremy Smith, Co-Founder of Standard & Strange to talk marketing, brand partnerships and his essential gear. Scroll down for the full interview.
Q&A
Tell us a little about yourself and the genesis of Standard & Strange.
My background is wide and deep. I’ve done literally everything from driving moving trucks to founding and running a consumer electronics company as the COO. Generally I tell people I spent about 20 years in the tech industry while slowly building up my apparel and retail skills.
Selecting unique, hard to find brands is a hallmark of Standard & Strange; how do you choose who to partner with and what are some things you look for when cultivating these partnerships?
Good product made by good people, but really, the people come first. We’ll pass on a brand with great product if we don’t love the people behind it. I could spend hours writing about how / why we select what we sell, we go very deep into the how and why of each product that we select.
What is the one piece of clothing you always bring with you when you travel?
That’s a tough one, it changes a bit with the season but our Wakayama Special loopwheeled tees we made in Japan are always in my bag. That and compression socks from Comrad.
How do you approach media partnerships, and what are some reasons why you've partnered with Gear Patrol, specifically?
I am slow and suspicious when it comes to media partnerships – I’ve had my fingers burned many times over the years. I look for high quality content, with a readership that is in our target audience, and with good people working for them. Gear Patrol checked all those boxes, and the team genuinely cares about what we do, vs other media outlets in our market that just churn and burn listicles of the newest drops.
Do you think it's important for brands to work with publishers like Gear Patrol? Why?
Absolutely. Finding the right set of partners who can help create and publish great content that lives forever online is essential these days.
You opened a store in New York City last year and started a foray into the whiskey and spirits game. What’s next for Standard & Strange?
The next year for us is focusing on our website, building out more deep content of our own, and in partnership with Gear Patrol. We’re also working on a lot more house brand products, along with some other initiatives that we will reveal over time.
You clearly have a passion for giving back to the community; tell us why that’s so important to you and perhaps how our readers can get involved.
It comes back to our identity as brick and mortar retailers. We can’t have stores if we don’t give back to the communities that surround those shops. We’re committed to proving that even in an impossibly hard industry, it’s still possible to be a good citizen, and a good employer. It’s easy for anyone to get involved, it’s a matter of looking around and seeing what the needs are near you. Time is as valuable as money when it comes to helping, and the best time to help is always now (especially as we get away from the holiday season).
Like this article? Want to get more just like it in your inbox? Subscribe to Gear Patrol Debrief, our monthly insights newsletter.
