Glossy Pop Newsletter: Will travel for Stoney Clover Lane – How the accessories brand built a devoted fan base

September 27, 2024 Mary

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On Saturday, hundreds of fans of Stoney Clover Lane, the brand best known for its customizable pouches, gathered in Tampa, where the brand celebrated the opening of its seventh store on Saturday. Many came from out of state.

It wasn’t a surprise to co-founder Kendall Glazer. In fact, she and her sister, co-founder Libby Glazer had secured a room block at a nearby hotel in advance of the opening. When they opened a store in Nashville in 2021, over 200 fans of the brand showed up.

Stoney Clover Lane launched in 2009 with a line of beaded bracelets — Kendall was 17 and Libby was 15. In the 15 years since, the brand has become a juggernaut, capturing a community of customers who collect its customizable pouches, duffle bags and purses. On Thursday, in celebration of Kendall’s 32nd birthday, the brand re-issued its “Gilmore Girls” collab. Other popular collaborations have been with Coca-Cola, Hello Kitty and the NFL. Customers customize their pouches with their initials, their pets’ names, the pouch’s contents (i.e., “makeup”), and so on. “Our customers love a theme,” Kendall said.

In addition, the brand has launched limited-edition items specific to each store location, which have proven popular. Fans have been showing up for its opening events since its 2020 opening in Newport Beach, California.

Today, SCL has 612,000 Instagram followers. In 2020, around the time Covid hit, Kendall said that figure was closer to 200,000. She traces the growth of its community to those early, lonely days of the pandemic.

“People were craving a connection,” Kendall said. “A lot of brands [say], ‘We’re going to create a community, and here’s how we’re going to do it.’ But that’s not what we set out to do. In March 2020, I sort of went into a panic. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. … I thought of us as a travel brand — and no one was traveling.”

In response, the founders developed Stoney Clover Lane University, a series of Zoom meetings where Kendall would talk to community members — cameras on — about how she was building the business and what she had learned from the experience, for example. Some people who attended these Zooms have since become friends and are now among the brand fans who attend its events.

Many of the brand’s fans have spent thousands at a single store opening, while others spend that much in a year. Prices start at around $14 for a patch and go up to $303 for a duffle bag. Kendall declined to comment on SCL’s current revenue, but the company reportedly saw 200% growth in 2020.

According to Kendall, Tampa was chosen as a Stoney Clover Lane store location because it’s up and coming. “A lot of young people are moving to Tampa,” she said. At the same time, “We have a very big Disney audience, so being close to Orlando is a huge benefit,” she said. The brand has sold limited-edition Disney collaborations, and because they’ve been so popular with its audience, it always keeps something Disney in stock. It’s currently selling a Disney Villains-themed collection.

In preparation for the store opening, the brand blocked 30 rooms at the Vinoy Resort & Golf Club in St. Petersberg, located 40 minutes away. Within hours of announcing the block on Instagram, they were booked. The brand then announced an additional 20 rooms, which also quickly filled. Rooms were booked by customers traveling from California, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Louisiana, as well as from all over the state of Florida. Seventy-eight guests filled the blocked rooms.

When SCL opened a store in Nashville in October 2021, it threw a party the night before, which Kendall likened to a rehearsal dinner. In Tampa, however, it took a different approach to offering its community something special: Each traveler’s room received a “room drop,” a term commonly used to describe the gifts placed in an influencer’s or editor’s room during a brand trip. This included SCL products, as well as items from brands including Vacation, Summer Fridays, Bumble & Bumble, Tree Hut and Smart Sweets, among others.

For Nicole Hochman, a 40-year-old photographer based in Boynton Beach, Florida, the brand’s 2022 Target collaboration served as a gateway drug. To attend the Tampa store opening, she drove four hours with her two daughters, ages 13 and 10 — they are diehard brand fans, too, she said.

“I literally buy everything,” she said. “I buy for me, for my two girls. I’ve bought stuff for my boyfriend, I’ve bought stuff for my son. We use it for travel. And we are huge, huge Disney people. … I probably would have camped out with my kids to be the first person [in the store at 7 a.m.” Due to her son’s baseball game, however, she arrived at 3:45 p.m. and missed the opportunity to snag the limited-edition patch she wanted, stating, “Will Travel for Stoney Clover.” Kendall said the brand released different patches throughout the day.

“The thing about Stoney Clover is that things are one of a kind, so if you don’t get it, that’s it,” Hochman said. “And then you have to wait for someone to eventually sell it.”

For Hochman’s daughters, though, their SCL fandom extends beyond just the products. “They love Kendall and Libby,” she said.

Fortunately, not only were Hochman’s daughters able to meet and take pictures with the founders in Tampa, but they were also gifted fanny packs by them. Hochman said she hadn’t seen her daughters so elated since they saw Taylor Swift in concert. Her daughters are the reason she attends the brand’s events, she said — SCL is an obsession the three can share, she said. SCL’s biggest customer demographic is women in their 20s to mid-40s.

Hochman’s spending at the new store over the weekend exceeded $2,000.

According to Kendall, a line to get into the store began to form at around 4 a.m., and its total sales for the weekend topped six figures — it was the brand’s best opening weekend, to date. Guests who made any purchase were able to customize hats as a gift-with-purchase, and every guest — whether they bought something or not — could enjoy snow cones, a candy station and other perks of being on-site.

Jasmin Leger, 35, an accountant, drove six hours to get to the store from Atlanta, starting her trip at 4 a.m. She also attended the Nashville store opening. She discovered the brand in 2020 through her love of Disney.

Leger and her mother shopped the new store on Saturday and Sunday, spending $250 on the first day — primarily on the Villains collection — and $370 on the second day. She admitted that she had also spent $650 on the brand’s just-released Prep Rally collection the week before.

Leger’s mom isn’t a diehard brand fan, but she was brought into the Stoney Clover fold via its sports-related merchandise. Leger bought her a Dallas Cowboys pouch as a holiday gift last year, and at the store opening, Kendall gifted her another. Leger said that both she and her mother have had a tough year, so, while the shopping was fun, her favorite part of the weekend was spending time together.

When asked how many pouches one needs, Leger was quick to point out the variety within her SCL collection. “You get [a fanny pack] in every color to match your outfit, and then [you get] the headbands that match the fanny packs. So it’s a whole set.” Kendall said the brand’s fanny packs are consistently among its top five best-sellers.