A Cybertruck was parked on Main Street in East Hampton, outside the Altuzarra store. It was a Sunday afternoon in June and the traffic was at a standstill. Even the rich aren’t immune to taking the piss out of a brutalist behemoth.
The monster truck marked the end of a monogrammed avenue – the island’s main luxury shopping street, with raffia handbags worth $850 and decorative surfboards worth $15,000. You know their names: Louis Vuitton, Loewe, Lululemon.
Two and a half miles away on the same street, however, a strange character emerged. East Hampton turned into Amagansett, and that striking boutique strip became a town square with white wood-paneled houses. There was a shoe store called Brunch, a children’s clothing chain called Pink Chicken, and a jewelry and gift shop called Love Adorned. A Cybertruck here would read like a declaration of war.
It was near these cottages that The Row, a brand founded in 2006 by Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, quietly opened a store over Memorial Day weekend.
Quiet is how the Row tends to operate. Not only in clothing – often described as ‘quiet luxury’, a term used to describe very expensive basics – but also in communication.
The founders rarely give interviews, advertise or otherwise promote their line. Although The Row announced Amagansett’s opening on Instagram, that account is more focused on sharing modern art than moving products. In February, the brand caused a stir at Paris Fashion Week by asking runway show attendees to ‘not capture or share content during your experience’ – which for many is the main reason for attending a fashion show. The audience was encouraged to write down their thoughts instead.
Somehow this position works. In an industry overrun by influencers, The Row’s silence is stark. Monastic life is chic. There is an impression of exclusivity and taste, supported by the extreme prices. One of The Row’s most popular items, the Margaux bag, ranges in price from $3,490 to $6,810, depending on size and material. It’s timeless and ladylike, the kind of bag that reminds Kendall Jenner of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The Row’s stores also have a reputation for being sometimes intimidating, even among seasoned high-end shoppers.
A loyal Row customer told me she felt like a “peasant” in the Los Angeles store, which has an untouchable swimming pool. At the Manhattan store — a townhouse with a limestone spiral staircase — “there’s one guy who works there who all my friends are afraid of, and who gives off a very ‘you can’t sit here’ vibe,” says Jess Graves, the author of a store newsletter called The love list“even for girls I know who come in wearing the brand from head to toe.”
The Amagansett store is different. It operates out of a house with roots in the 19th century, formerly occupied by Tiina the Store, the Hamptons’ Gap for billionaires. (Tiina filled the line.)
It has a veranda and a screen door and a woven beige carpet. The fitting rooms are brightly lit behind denim patchwork curtains. (By contrast, the spacious, wood-floored changing rooms at the Upper East Side store where I recently tried on a $1,550 white cotton poplin tent dress that tragically made me look like a hospital patient have soft lighting and softer robes.)
There is no statement artwork in Amagansett, unlike the London store, where an oval light installation by James Turrell greets visitors at the entrance. The vintage furniture is remarkable: there is a black chaise longue in the shape of a person from the 1970s by Olivier Mourgue Bouloum and a white painted wooden armchair from the 1930s by Robert Mallet-Stevens. But it’s not about the decor, with its Asian and African influences.
The point of the store is its large selection of jewelry, homewares, snacks, and skin care from more than 20 brands and artisans who don’t belong to the Row. Shampoo from Florence. Bead necklaces from Greece. A caviar set made of mother of pearl. A bronze lighter, carved in the shape of tree bark. A pack of dried mango and a jar of raw almonds. Vintage glass candle holders that can only be purchased in a set of a dozen for $16,000.
There are racks of ready-to-wear clothes made by the Row, of course, the selection tailored to this seaside town: bike shorts ($1,050), denim shirts (also $1,050), ribbed tank tops ($670), sleeveless silk maxi dresses ($1,890). Mrs. Graves bought a raffia bag here earlier this season. (“It felt very appropriate now that I’m here this summer,” she said.)
But The Row confirmed that the Amagansett store is its first attempt at a “local” retail concept. What this presumably means is a space that is more relaxed, filled with objects that complement the brand’s vision of itself, staffed by sales associates who don’t push people away, but warmly help shoppers find the store. sold out jelly flats. Not that The Row fans are easily deterred: even those who are intimidated don’t stay away for long, these masochists for cream-colored cashmere.
In retrospect, the popular jelly shoes, along with the beach towels that models wore as scarves the Row runway in September, may have been a sign that the brand was loosening up – that brightness and humor were coming to this austere world. (The most recent lookbook showed a silky camisole layered over pants, Y2K style.)
A British customer of The Row who visited the Amagansett store marveled at the change in atmosphere. Where was the icy indifference? “I don’t think it would suit the audience here,” she said.
