‘Feel Good About Looking Great’: Fashion Meets Purpose at Global Pursuit
Alaina Young and Sydney Clarke working as cashiers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you’re shopping at Global Pursuit and purchase a shirt, you might just think you got a cute new top to wear to your next barbecue. But if the shirt happens to be made by the brand United By Blue, your purchase just also improved the environment.
With a pledge to remove 1 pound of trash from oceans and waterways for every product purchased, United By Blue is just one of many forward-thinking brands that Global Pursuit features in a seamless fusion of fashion and environmental consciousness.
“We’ve carried United By Blue since they had two T-shirts on the market, and we’ve done beach cleanups with them,” says Angela Marsh, the owner and operator of Global Pursuit. “It just resonates with me and it’s meaningful to me and every member of my family on so many levels. Living on the beach, the water provides our livelihood in so many ways. We need to make sure our water is clean.”
Marsh and her husband, Derick, bought Global Pursuit, located on 96th Street, from the previous owners in 2010. “One of the main reasons we were attracted to the business was because its focus had always been on socially and environmentally conscious clothing,” she explains.
“Feel good about looking great … really is our motto. For example, we have solar panels on the store, and we carry brands like TOMS, with their One-For-One statement, and Patagonia, with their recycled content. These were brands we carried long before it was the thing to do. I’m not saying everything in the store is like this, but we do seek those brands out. If a manufacturer is doing something in a positive light – that is something we absolutely, positively want to support,” she asserts.
The store’s selection of clothing and accessories for the whole family is as carefully curated as it is full of variety. With flowing dresses, flirty tanks, breezy cover-ups, tropical-print button downs, vintage Philly sports T-shirts, boho jewelry, bikinis, sandals and more, the store has everything to take you from sandcastles to sangria.
In addition to its mission, Global Pursuit’s Stone Harbor location was another draw for Marsh, who grew up in the area. She spent summers working at her parents’ Wildwood motel in the day and waitressing at Henny’s at night, developing an abiding reverence for working at the Jersey Shore and paying her way through law school in the process.
She ultimately became a trademark and copyright attorney, left the area for many years with her husband Derick, and had two sons before returning to her roots.
“When my second son was born, we moved to Georgia and I stopped practicing law,” she says. “Then we came back up north and since I’d grown up around seasonal businesses, we were looking to buy one, and that’s what we did.”
The family has been running the business together ever since. And like their mother, Marsh’s sons grew up around a seasonal business at the Jersey Shore. “Ben and Sam have always worked at the store since we bought it,” she says.
Together, the family has stayed true to their guiding principles through good times and hard times. “We’ve all been in it together and it hasn’t always been fun,” says Marsh. “We had Superstorm Sandy, we had Hurricane Irma. We’ve certainly had our fair share of natural disasters, and now obviously with the COVID-19 crisis we’re weathering another one. But we’re doing it as a team. We made a decision straightaway to shut the doors a couple of days before the governor required it because the health of our employees is paramount in this.”
Looking out for her employees is another way that Marsh makes Global Pursuit more than just a clothing store. “It’s been a joy,” she says. “You want to set up everybody for success, that’s the No. 1 rule. And respect one another, that’s the No. 2 rule.
“One of the most rewarding things is the people who we hire every year – we have incredible repeat employees. They may start with us when they’re 14 and we will see them all the way through college graduation. One of my first employees ever is a local lawyer now and she actually came back and helped us on the sidewalk sale one year.”
Marsh also credits her longtime managers with keeping things running smoothly. “I have been incredibly fortunate to have had two of the best managers anyone could ever hope to have in Susie Bickford and Cati Shoemaker, who are really the boots on the ground day to day,” she says. “We really feel together as a team. That’s very important to us. That allows us to serve the customer and be able to have that positivity and energy in the store when people come in.”
And Marsh truly appreciates the symbiotic relationship between seasonal businesses, customers, and community.
“This region that we live in is so much more than just a beach town,” she says. “It’s where we all have these connections. The small businesses live in service of those who come to visit us. The restaurateurs, the bar owners, the hoteliers – we’re not just faceless people. We’re an integral part of the shore town that people visit. I really feel like this is true all along the Jersey Shore. We’re all in this together.”
For her part, Marsh’s unique background, including her law career, infuses everything at Global Pursuit. “I think this business in particular is half-science, half-art,” she says. “You need to know the numbers. You need to know the business end of it. Trademark is sort of a very creative aspect of the law, and I think that those skills were able to translate.”
As for the fashion … “there’s the art part,” she says. “I do all of the buying for the store along with the managers. That’s a fun part of the job. It’s kind of what makes Global Pursuit a very special place to shop because it’s not like a department store. It’s like, ‘Oh! I found this cute little thing!’”
This summer, customers will find a wide variety of “cute little things” despite restrictions. Ready to abide by all the protocols that New Jersey has in place, Marsh has already had a deep clean of the store, installed hand-sanitizing stations and sneeze guards, and will require all employees to wear masks.
Additionally, the store will be selling masks for the whole family, including some with their own custom Stone Harbor print. “We’re selling a lot of masks,” Marsh notes. “I’d rather have people out and about with masks than being shuttered at home.”
Marsh is also excited about the store’s e-commerce site built by her sons, who are now college graduates.
“We always had a website but we didn’t really do e-commerce in the way that some sites do,” she says. “And Ben and Sam really worked furiously over the past few months to get it to be a site we’re very proud of. We have most of the shop on there. That was a big organic growth for us.”
And yet, as so many things change in 2020, Marsh is certain many things will remain the same at Global Pursuit.
She says she “recently pulled up my first annual business meeting and our mission statement. It says: ‘To serve the community we live in … To exceed expectations of ourselves and our customers … And to enjoy what we do by serving the community.’ That statement was as true 10 years ago as it is today.”
Just the facts…
Global Pursuit
262 96th Street
Stone Harbor, NJ 08247
609-368-5556
shopglobalpursuit.com
