Inside the opening party for Sorel’s pop-up store in Brooklyn

A crisp October evening in the trendy shopping district of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A gleaming black Suburban pulls up to the curb. Paparazzi cameras click and flash as the rear door opens. Out steps Chloe Bailey, the singer and actress better known mononymously as Chlöe.

Her outfit was all black, as were her shoes, except for chunky white soles. Her shoes as in her shoes: Chlöe designed the boots in a collaboration with Sorel. And she’s arrived tonight at an opening party for that very brand’s pop-up store.

The exterior and interior were all orange, to match the heavy use of the color in Sorel’s current shoe line. Also orange: the evening’s cocktail, an Aperol Spritz. And the paparazzi wall backdrop, with the brand’s polar bear logo in white.

BFA, the photography agency, captured celebrities posing in front of it, including actresses Julia Fox (Could you pull this look off?) and Hari Neff (of Barbie fame), along with model Precious Lee.

It was a scene. But scenes don’t come together without behind-the-scenes strategists, so we buttonholed three of them.

The brand manager

Established in 1962, Sorel was best known in that century for its men’s Caribou, a substantial rubber boot with leather uppers and toasty liners, perfect for snowplow drivers and skiers on the way to the slopes.

While that model’s still available, these days the brand, which was acquired by Columbia Sportswear in 2000, has set its sights elsewhere.

“We’ve been focusing on women, and that’s been a focus for us for the last five-plus years,” Michelle Noschese, global brand manager at Sorel, shouted to us over the DJ at the opening.

While plenty of men’s styles are available at Sorel’s retail partners including Nordstrom and Macy’s, the pop-up, which is open for 10 days (through October 22), features only more fashion-forward women’s models.

The store designer

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more orange, there’s this: It was on the day in June when, thanks to wildfires burning in Canada, New York City turned an eerie shade of orange, when Melissa Gonzalez, the founder of The Lionesque Group, which designed the space, first toured the site of the store with a posse from Sorel.

It had “a very New York bodega feel,” Gonzalez said of the store, whose showroom is just 950 square feet. “And we could take over the whole exterior, which was super important, so we really had a brand moment starting from the outside in.”

The influencer marketer

Assembling the guestlist and whipping up the buzz fell largely to Emma Oldenkamp, VP of integrated communications at marketing agency R\West.

When Sorel told the agency it wanted the pop-up shop to be “a really exciting press moment,” it set Oldenkamp’s plan in motion, she said as we stepped outside, near the cluster of photographers.

“We said, ‘We need to have a celebrity component here, to get all of the paparazzi out here’” and to “create a lot of excitement beyond their retail moment,” Oldenkamp said.

It wasn’t just celebrity guests that Oldenkamp and her colleagues shod in Sorel and lined up for the event. They also “reached out to Chlöe” and “brokered a partnership” between her and Sorel, she said.

Most guests at the event, though, were social-media influencers, Oldenkamp explained.

“The majority of the individuals here are actually micro-influencers,” Oldenkamp said. “So people with followings between 5,000 to 20,000, who are really great style ambassadors, but not people that brands are going to spend a ton of money on.”