Like our other bags, The Drift Clutch was designed with a combination of form and function in mind. Inspired by the Drift Inn in East Quogue, NY we felt this was the arena we wanted our clutch to excel in, i.e. your beach night life. With 5 different colorways to mix & match with your outfit, our clutch is beach chic yes, but when its 3:30am and you have been cranking out deep knee squat-jumps as “Shout” takes hold of the crowd, you want to ensure that you still have your credit cards, ID, cell phone and most importantly cash for that taxi ride home. That’s why The Drift Clutch has a super secure zipper pocket within the main zippered compartment, and the flap is secured by a magnetic closure. Whether or not you can hold onto your Drift Clutch for the entire night is your problem. Ah, but what a good problem it is. Hope to see you out in Quogue or wherever your dance party may take you this summer—enjoy///
We headed up to Massachusetts last Thursday for the first Nauti & Co. road trip of the summer. After an extensive tour last summer of the Northeast, we’ve spent most of this summer fulfilling orders for the stores we accumulated at the gift shows in January. While we couldn’t be happier with cranking out orders, the Nantucket Summer Soiree afforded us a great opportunity to advertise the Nauti brand.
Now if you have been keeping score at home, you’ll know that the Nauti & Co. theme thus far in 2011 has been extreme weather. We faced two of the severe winter storms while trying to get to both the NYC and ATL gift shows in January including one that shut the entire city of Atlanta down for a week. Fast forward to our Summer Launch party in early June in NYC at the Boat Basin when it was a sweltering mid-90s followed up by a severe summer thunderstorm. Which brings us to last-weeks record breaking Northeast heat wave. Hey, at least we were heading north and sticking by the coast.
Since we figured we’d get an entire weekend out of our trip, we planned to scout Boston for some stores Thursday, stay in town and party with the ole Ham-Tech crowd and then head to the Cape Friday for an all day trunk show. While the afternoon in Boston was pretty much a wash, the sloppiness that became of that night was well worth it. We proceeded to drag ourselves out of bed (before our hosts I might add), and head to the Cape. It had to have been already in the 90s when we got to Chatham at 11am. We were setting up at Midsummer Nights, a great beach lifestyle store that has everything from furniture to women’s fashion. We were very excited to be greeted with an arctic blast of AC upon entering the store. Our high hopes of a comfy day of meeting and greeting in the ice box were subsequently dashed when informed that the trunk shows set up on the front porch of the store. Here we go.
After setting up the trunk show and sweating through my Nauti Classic T in the first 10 minutes, I pretty much figured I’d be the repulsive sweaty guy for the rest of the day scaring away customers not only from our setup but Midsummer Nights as well. Luckily for us, we were able to tuck ourselves into a nook of shade and as long as we remained relatively motionless, it wasn’t too bad. But the reality was for the day that mostly everyone on the Cape that day were keeping to the beaches and off Main St. It was certainly a bummer to not have drawn more of a crowd but we’ve come to expect disappointment via Mother Nature so we didn’t sweat it too much (see what I did there). Success no-less, scattered throughout the day several lovely young ladies made some nice bag & apparel purchases. Sara, the owner of Midsummer Nights, placed a very nice order with us consisting of several Getaway Duffle bags, Drift Clutches and Dock Wood tables so please go check them out if you are in Chatham this summer.
Another night of imbibing with old friends on the Cape clouded our judgment the following morning when allocating our time before the ACK ferry. We placed a higher premium on enjoying delicious Mickey D’s breakfast sandwiches in the slow serving establishment instead of taking them with, mix that with 5 mph local traffic and bingo, missed our 11am Fast Ferry by 3 minutes. We finally made it to Nantucket 4 hours later and barely found Jenne’s house with both of our phones dying due to an Angry Birds marathon to kill some of the time. Jenne, another old Hamilton buddy, was a saint to let us crash with her and her husband Eric, as she is literally weeks from giving birth to a female islander. We decided to play down our weather theme, as Jenne was most likely a tad bit more uncomfortable than us. Due to our delay, we were unable to make it out to visit on of the stores that carries Nauti, Bookstore Wines in Sconset. Instead we had to change and head over to the Summer Soiree at the Nantucket Boys and Girls Club to set up our display.
This is the 4th year of the Soiree which is an event held to support the local Boys and Girls club on Island. Along with us the sponsors included Bonobos, Henley & Sloan, Knockaround, Cisco Brewery among others. The event was very well organized and run and went off without a hitch (except for when the lights went out . . . 5 times). Seriously, the place was packed, the sauce was flowing, the food was excellent and the band was amazing. I have to say, I had my doubts about Nauti & Co’s prospects at an event of this nature being on the other side and caring much more about the open bar than any of the sponsors. The party goers, however, couldn’t have been more interested and engaged in learning about the brand and about our story. We basically had a steady line of guests to spit Nauti game to for probably 3 hours. We even made several sales, 10% of which is donated back to the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club.
So all in all, a great event for both us and the party goers. After packing up, we were able to join the Party Committee and head over to the Chicken Box for Joshua Tree, a great way to end a successful night. Quick thanks to Arianne, John, Abby, Tamara, Hailey, Sean & Jared among others for organizing a great night and including us.
The following morning, I was greeted early by Jenne’s large Swiss Mountain Dog, Greta. Being a dog person, she knows I’m the sucker who will play with her so the first rustling in my room was met by barks loud enough to wake the neighbors. And we’re up. Since we lost the previous afternoon on island we decided to take a later ferry and make our way out to Sconset to see Cindy Nelson and her great little place, Bookstore Wines. Cindy has been a big Nauti & Co. supporter so far this summer and she did not disappoint ordering several of the Drift Clutches and Getaway Duffle bags. After staying to eat at her wonderful adjoining Café, we were on our way for the long journey home.
Even with the slight set backs due to the heat and missing our boat, etc this was certainly a successful weekend and we hope to make these types of weekends a big part of our initiative moving forward.
