By Tierra Wilson

What fashion company online has been fearless enough to throw all traditional business tactics by finding their merchandise using design competitions, naming their company after the winners, launching their brand on Twitter and vowing to never be in stores?

Meet Airess & Church, a denim lifestyle brand founded by former Cross Media Marketing executive Courtney Wilson and J. Jackson, Airess and Church’s current Creative Director. The two have developed a brand that literally throws tradition to the side and embraces social media in a way that connects them with their targeted audience, creates buzz and represents the young brand’s ability to step outside of the box.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Courtney Wilson who let us in on the story behind the brand:

TW: Before we get into the strategy behind your social media approach, can you explain to me the meaning behind your name…Airess & Church Brand Merchandise?

CW: We ran a design competition in 2006 call the “Perfect Pair”. In this competition we scoured the globe looking for a designer who could create the perfect pair of jeans. Out of 4,000 contestants and months of reviewing entries there was a tie between Italian designer Airess Genero and South African designer Namisi Church.

Our office was literally split in half, and for weeks neither would concede. After intense deliberation and over-contemplation we decided to call it a draw. Thus, Airess & Church was born.

TW: Naming your company after the winners is not only a bold move, but it really shows how in touch you are with your audience. Speaking of audiences, what made you decide to launch exclusively on Twitter instead of going with a traditional brand launch that has a mixture of offline and online strategies?

CW: Social Media is a new frontier for communication. Being a young company with young minds at the helm, we wanted to think of a way to bridge the fun and excitement of this new medium with our product. We felt like the philosophy of the “cookie cutter” traditional launch has gotten stale, so we figured hey – why not push the envelope?

TW: It’s great to see a brand that is thinking out of the box that way. You decided to not only launch on Twitter but also to launch using a particular denim line. Tell me more about your Native Soil Collection and why that collection was the one chosen to base your launch on.

CW: “Native Soil” speaks directly to the “feel” of the denim in the line. With so many denim brands just “throwing” jeans to the public, we wanted to take the time to create a significant statement with our product. The denim associated with each style is reminiscent of a specific part of the United States. For example, the indigo-saturated “Lenox Square” edition is named because of its long, dark look and smooth feel.

This item exudes luxury with its stealthy lines, subtle detailing and rich color reminiscent of Atlanta, Georgia’s Lenox district, [a posh shopping area in the upscale Buckhead district, well known for being one of the wealthiest communities in the US].

We wanted to launch with something people could relate to. There’s nothing more familiar than your own backyard, and it is our hope that not only are people happy with their jeans but also with the communal statement made by the garment.

TW: Well, your tag line, “Never in Stores, Always in Style”, definitely explains your brand. What was the inspiration behind your tag line and explain why “click and mortar” was the best choice for Airess & Church.

CW: We think Airess & Church is the natural evolution of fashion. More and more, people both young and old look to the internet first for answers, we thought it best to provide our customers with a brand that they cannot only familiarize themselves with via the web, but also benefit from the almost instant gratification that the internet provides.

We are overly confident that women all over the world will adore the Airess & Church fit, and once you love the way we make you look and feel, why would you ever have drive to the mall to buy jeans again? It’s a good question.

TW: Although you’ve only been on Twitter 9 months, you mentioned that “Twitter has been paramount in generating anticipation of our launch and assisting in the growth of our brand. No other social media outlet had been more beneficial in providing our staff such critical insight into our customer base” . Why has Twitter been so instrumental to A&C? Was it an in-house strategy or apart of online luck?

CW: Twitter provides our company with a constant contact to our consumer base. No other medium offers a business a real time link to their consumers. We’ve been able to test items, share thoughts and ideas with customers 24 hours a day, from St. Louis to Singapore, and this interaction has been invaluable to our development. We love it.

As far as strategy, it was a little of both, when first suggested I think we all were eager to try it – but nervous about the results. Now we all fight for “twitter time”! Everyone from our Creative Director to our interns will drop a tweet every now and then. We’re having a ball with it.

TW: Well your passion shows, you seem to be just as excited about Twitter as your followers. How do you keep your followers interested and engaged in the brand?

CW: Our followers are our life blood. We didn’t want to run out and get a million of followers just to find that nine hundred ninety nine thousand were people who had no idea who we were and what we did. Instead, we wanted to slowly build a strong core and hope that our message would not only spread through twitter, but outside as well. So far so good!

TW: I think your strategy can be inspirational to others who have had a hard time understanding and taking advantage of social media. What advice can you give boutiques, fashion lines, designers, stylist, makeup artist, etc. about online marketing?

CW: Online marking is a necessity. The internet is become more than a tool, it’s another universe entirely and to not make an equal and effort to market online as you do off, could spell disaster.

Business must understand that behind the photos and avatars that flood social media, is a real person with real interests and opinions. You must make the effort to reach out and stay in contact and realize that you never know who you’re talking to or how they can help or hurt your business.

TW: Courtney, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us about Airess & Church.

If you want to learn more about Airess & Chruch, visit them online at www.airessandchurch.com or follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/airessandchurch.

Tierra M Wilson began The Fashion Techie in 2007 after her career as a VP of a technology department, adjunct professor to fortune 500 companies, and community technology advocate led to a number of high profile consulting jobs. Today The Fashion Techie is a full service interactive marketing agency with connections and partners across the United States. Her goal is to provide fashion related businesses with the best of both worlds, Fashion and Technology. Visit www.thefashiontechie.com.

Tags: Airess & Church, jeans, Marketing, The Fashion Techie