The Road to Nowhere Leads to Kingston

“We want to show our customers that you don’t have to wear things with spandex or polyester to be comfortable,” says Sasha Rudes, co-founder of clothing line Road to Nowhere. “And the first thing people comment on when they come to our stores and touch our fabrics is, ‘Wow, everything’s so soft.’”

Road to Nowhere opened the doors of its third shop this past March in a storefront on Fair Street in Kingston that formerly housed River Mint Finery, a local retailer that had carried Road to Nowhere’s collection for three years. The brand also tabled at Field + Supply markets for the past three years.

“We’ve built an amazing customer base [in Kingston]. We knew the space, we knew the customer, we knew the area,” Feinberg says. “We fell in love with Kingston. When we found out that River Mint Finery wasn’t renewing its lease, we looked at each other and asked, ‘Is this meant to be?’”

“It was like the universe was talking to us,” Rudes agrees, with Feinberge pitching in, “It was serendipitous.”

Road to Nowhere operates two other stores in Montauk and Sag Harbor, as well as an ecommerce business. “We have a sweet spot in the Hamptons and Kingston, either being where people’s second homes are or where people are relocating to,” Rudes says. “For a lot of city people, we’ve become their favorite store to shop when they’re coming for their weekend destination, and for a lot of locals, we’ve become their go-to.”

Rudes and Feinberg launched the brand in 2021, bringing together her lifelong experience in the fashion industry with his expertise in marketing technology. Road to Nowhere is founded upon values in sustainability, high-quality materials, and designs suited to travel. The brand, which releases four collections per year, offers womenswear and menswear, as well as a selection of unisex pieces sized to fit both women and men. “It’s the only way we saw it,” Rudes explains.

“We felt that there wasn’t a sustainable brand developing great core pieces that you could just pack in a carry-on and go travel for a weekend,” she continues. “And that was a big pain point for us, being big travelers for work and for fun. So that’s why we very much saw this as having to dress the male and the female.”

Several pieces in the collection, including the Bali pant—a barrel-leg style with a drawstring waist—and the Accord flannel shirt are available in both women’s and men’s sizing. This practice of unisex sizing has always made sense to Rudes and Feinberg.

“It was very practical from a production standpoint when we’re doing those lounge-style pieces. When you’re looking at a drawstring pant from a design perspective, we don’t need to have two. We can have it cater to both men and women,” Rudes explains. “And it resonates really well with our customer, too. When people come to our stores, especially if they’re couples shopping, people tend to be drawn to that idea of the unisex styles that work for both.”

Road to Nowhere’s collection is made in Los Angeles and Portugal, using carefully selected, high-quality materials. The brand doesn’t use any synthetic materials and instead focuses solely on natural fabrics such as organic cotton, natural linen, and BCI Japanese denim. Rudes, who grew up watching her father’s career in denim manufacturing in Los Angeles, describes these selections as “old-school, natural fibers.” Her design goals is always to find a way to make these classic fabrics wearable and comfortable. “Once we fall in love with a fabric, we develop it into the product we want,” she says.

“We were always very passionate about the sustainability element,” Rudes continues. “That was something we knew we wanted to do—bring high-quality fabrics to wearable fashion. We felt like it was something we had a hard time finding, especially in cooler silhouettes.”

Rudes’s designs incorporate cool, avant-garde detailing such as barrel and horseshoe silhouettes on pants or narrow, pointed collars on men’s shirts. The collection is at the same time contemporary and timeless, with both earthy and beachy hues throughout.

Now that the brand has its own, permanent location in Kingston, Rudes and Feinberg look forward to building their community and strengthening their roots in the area. “Our goal in Kingston is community-building through events and through more face time with Justin and me,” Rudes says. “I think that’s a big part of the success with our Hamptons locations—we always put our customers first, and that’s how we’ve built a community out there.”

Follow the brand on Instagram to find out more future events.