Chicago Collective: Inside the Buyer’s Mind

Journey with us behind the scenes of the Chicago Collective fashion market…

We don’t just sit around waiting for you to come and shop with us. We are prepared before you ever arrive and are equipped with almost anything that your fashionable mind conjures.  

One of the ways we prepare is by attending these seasonal markets (like the Chicago Collective event that you see here) to research and procure the freshest and sophisticated fabrics and styles for you. 

Like designing, buying for a store is rightfully its own art form--knowing when a trend begins or ends before it is deemed so. As you can imagine, it takes an expert team to predict the future and wrap all of these elements into a neat bow to offer to you. While this was our first market as the b.Kreps&Co. family, our founder, Brian Kreps, and his wife have attended these markets for over 65 years. 

At these markets, we brainstorm with vendors across the world as we try to process and reason:

• How can we make this unique to our patron?

• How will these pieces be made? Where will they be made?

• What colors and patterns should we include? Will this stand the test of time? 

• How will this be worn? What can we pair with this? 

• Do our clients want this? What can we do to help guide or find their personal style?

• Does this make sense for us to carry? Does it fit the mission that we’ve created for ourselves in guiding you?

The Kreps’ presence at markets over the decades has allowed them to develop many strong relationships and friendships with vendors and fellow retailers, who have helped to answer these questions and led them to make good buying decisions. 

As we made our team debut at the Chicago Collective, we quickly learned that it takes sacrifice, compromise, and lots of imagination to build a full and complete collection. Vendor support and guidance, coupled with the trust that we have within our team, is how we know shopping with us will be an adventure. 

We hope you can see the joy of buying just as much as we had fun being there on your behalf and can't wait to see you in our first b.Kreps&Co. showroom soon…