When Catherine and Nick Carnevale launched their knitwear brand Eleven Six 10 years ago, their brand was one of the first to call Kingston its home. Now, the city is the obvious choice for fashion companies in the Hudson Valley.
“I’m grateful for what’s emerging when people talk about Kingston. It’s exciting to be here,” Catherine Carnevale says.
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A decade ago, Eleven Six was joined only by Karina Dresses and a small handful of other fashion retailers operating out of Kingston. Now, Kingston is a fashion destination, attracting both shoppers and fashion entrepreneurs alike. Local shoppers, day-trippers, and tourists visiting Kingston will find local brands with storefronts such as La Vie Après L’Amour, GirlBoy and Hamilton & Adams, side by side with vintage shops and local retailers.
GirlBoy made Kingston its home when it was first launched at the end of 2023. The brand, whose effortless, genderless aesthetic is inspired by strong feminist icons, has a wide reach with over 27K followers on Instagram. Its founder, Morgan Hoffman, is a Hudson Valley native who lived and worked in New York City before returning to her roots. This career path is not uncommon for fashion professionals from the region. Kaitlyn Murray, the designer and business-owner behind La Vie Après L’Amour, also returned to the area to build her brand five years ago.
“Kingston is an artistic community, so that comes through,” Murray says. “The fashion community in Kingston ranges. There is a really good vintage, secondhand community.” Lovefield, Capital Vintage, and Reracked hold down the Stockade District vintage threads scene, while downtown by the waterfront, La Vie Après L’Amour built upon that community.
Murray’s collection is made up of upcycled men’s shirts, sourced from local secondhand clothing stores and repurposed into timeless womenswear pieces such as cropped tops, shirt dresses and skirts. Murray embroiders over damages and stains to make the pieces better than new.
Murray says that Kingston is the city that makes sense for her brand. “When I moved back here, I heard that Hudson was the next hot town, so I tried it out,” she explains. “And I love Hudson, but it just wasn’t quite right for my market. It’s smaller, and I would have had to increase pricing. I was doing pop-ups all around, and I had one in Brunette [Wine Bar] in the summer of 2022 and I loved it. I love the feel of downtown Kingston—it has a very old European feel, which is what I’m drawn to. And the clientele that I met was right.”
Her store, Maison Après, opened on the Kingston Waterfront in 2023 and now operates a coffee shop and event space in addition to selling her own fashion products and those of other local designers. Local shoppers have proven to be Murray’s target customer-base, with repeat visitors returning multiple times a week. “Ninety-nine percent of people who come in the door understand what I’m doing, no questions asked,” she says.
While Murray recognizes that a higher foot traffic area such as Uptown Kingston might seem like a more desirable location, her store continues to attract shoppers from near and far. “I don’t mind being off the main drag as long as the space makes sense,” she explains. Along with the local community, Maison Après attracts repeat customers from Westchester, New Jersey, and New York City who make a day trip out of shopping in Kingston.
Maison Après isn’t the only store bringing shopping tourism to Kingston. Melissa Lauprete, whose store, At Land, sells a curated selection of independent designers, says that the majority of her customers come to Kingston specifically to shop. She says, “We love to serve as a tour guide, and refer to restaurants, cultural institutions, events, and other businesses. We are about to start working on a curated map of our favorite Kingston businesses to hand out.”
And it’s not just the brick-and-mortars pulling their weight. Since 2017, Kingston has been home to Field + Supply, a biannual fashion and craft market that brings both shoppers and new vendors to the area. The event’s founder, Brad Ford, says that the local shoppers have a strong desire to support local makers. “The region is rich in creative talent, with artists and artisans spanning every discipline from home furnishings to fashion,” he adds.
Kingston’s fashion scene isn’t only drawing shoppers—it has also begun attracting new businesses. Since the start of this year, zero-waste clothing brand Namai has called Kingston its home. Known for handcrafted jackets, pants, sweaters, and accessories that are upcycled from vintage Kantha quilts and recycled silk, the brand has a wide reach with 109K Instagram followers. Their collection will now be designed from Namai’s new studio space on Hasbrouck Avenue.
“Kingston has such a strong community of creative entrepreneurs,” Bianca Kuttickattu, Namai’s founder, says. “As I grow my business and brand I want to be connected to a strong and supportive community. I’ve been coming to Kingston for years to do Field + Supply, and I’ve never met a creative person that had a bad thing to say about being here. I can’t wait to open my studio for events, and be a part of creating a vibrant and connected ecosystem around Namai.”
Similarly, Sam Zollman is in the process of moving his menswear brand Slow Process from Burlington, Vermont to Kingston. “People in the Hudson Valley value the arts, they value the trades, they value things made by hand,” Zollman says. “The lifestyle is a little bit more conducive to dressing nicely or having a little bit more fun or kind of creativity in what you wear in a way that Vermonters are much more practical or pragmatic.”
While Zollman is new to the area, his brand is not. In addition to retailing through At Land, Zollman has brought Slow Process to Field + Supply and roving market Phoenicia Flea. These retail channels have shown the designer everything Kingston can provide an independent fashion brand.
“Over the years I’ve found that Kingston is a hub for people looking for a fun, happening, vibrant, smaller town that really has a love for small business and for the arts,” he says. “For me, it seems like a nice halfway point between what Burlington has offered me and what New York City has going on. It’s the center of the Venn diagram, so to speak.”
Slow Process is a small batch clothing label made with antique textiles. Its shirts, jackets, and trousers nod to utility with large pockets and straight cuts. The brand brings with it a popular following with 23 thousand Instagram followers. As of this spring, Slow Process will share a space with Pollyanna Projects and Cut Teeth Skateshop on Hasbrouck Avenue, where the brand will be open to appointment-based shopping and events.
Fashion and art have always gone hand-in-hand, so it’s no surprise that a city with as diverse an arts community as Kingston is supportive of new fashion businesses. “The proximity to the city feeds the creative community here,” Lauprete says, adding that local arts events such as Upstate Art Weekend and Art Walk Kingston are excellent opportunities to network with other businesses and connect with new clients. In fact, the clothing business is a rich piece of Kingston’s history. The garment industry employed thousands in the early 20th century, through factories including Kingston Knitting Mills, the Jacobsen Shirt Factory, and the Manhattan Shirt Factory. While these manufacturers are no longer in existence today, their remnants can still be seen within the local fashion industry. Eleven Six’s retail space is on the first floor of the Fuller Building, which once housed the Fuller Shirt Company.
“We still pinch ourselves today every time we’re in there,” Carnevale says of her store’s Fuller Building location. The history and beauty of the space itself drew Carnevale to Kingston for her brand’s home.
With 20K Instagram followers and past coverage in national publications like Vogue and The Cut, Eleven Six has a wide reach. The brand’s store brings shoppers to the area for one-to-one appointments, where clients can discover Eleven Six’s knitwear, which is designed locally and crafted ethically in Peru using baby alpaca fiber. “It’s a form of wellness when you come into our store,” Carnevale says. “People are often really taken by the feel of our sweaters—trying on our knitwear or feeling it in your hand.”
The convenience of online retail requires in-store shopping to be more distinctive, more experiential. This is a trend that Kingston stores have caught on to. With its coffee bar, Maison Après is as much a gathering space as it is a clothing store, while At Land’s art exhibition space gives shoppers another reason to visit. Collaborative shopping events allow brands to introduce their customers to other local brands. Next week, Eleven Six, Namai and eyewear brand Carla Colour will hold a sample sale together at the Fuller Building, from 2/28 to 3/1.
The collaborative, creative spirit is what makes Kingston stand out as a fashion destination—for shoppers and brands alike.
“There’s a lack of pretension, a strong focus on sustainability, and it’s a vintage haven,” Lauprete says. “And, if affordability and access can stay in check, I believe Kingston has more opportunity to grow as a cultural center for arts and design and small business than any other place in the region.”
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This article appears in February 2025.
