Stroll along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill neighborhood, and you might notice a boutique selling sumac- and chartreuse-colored leather bags. This is Lindquist Object, which opened its doors last November.
Among the leather goods are shelves neatly stacked with indigo-dyed denim from Rudy Jude; a glass case displaying silver and gold sculptural jewelry by Fay Andrada; a clothing rack filled with graphic-printed separates by Ilana Kohn of Samet; and whimsical mix-and-matchable pieces by Kassandra Maria Lao Pietri of KasMaria.
Down the block is Misha & Puff, the second outpost of a shop that specializes in children’s wear and handmade toys and has recently branched out into women’s apparel.
It’s not unusual to see shoppers bouncing between the two stores. Their proximity, the timeline of their openings and the selection of their inventory is deliberate. In September 2024, Anna Wallack opened Misha & Puff on Atlantic and scoped out a space a few feet away for a storefront for her good pal Lindquist McDonough, who goes by Lindy.
Nearly everything Wallack and McDonough sell in their boutiques is made by a community of designers who share a commitment to making things by hand, remaining independent and supporting one another. Together, they are shaping the way we shop and dress.
“From the beginning, I’ve always felt like I wanted to be in company with like-minded brands and actual friends,” said Wallack, who currently lives in Boston and founded her company nearly 15 years ago. Wallack was the first of three friends to start her business, followed by Julie O’Rourke, a Maine-based designer whose shop, Rudy Jude, began online in 2016. In 2020, McDonough established Lindquist, basing her studio in Providence, R.I.
O’Rourke and McDonough knew each other from college at the Rhode Island School of Design. Wallack and O’Rourke met when O’Rourke’s toddler modeled for Misha & Puff. Rudy Jude was in its own infancy stage. Like Wallack’s concept, it was originally a children’s clothing project that later expanded into women’s wear. Wallack took on the role of mentor, showing her new friend the ropes.
It felt natural to do the same for McDonough, said O’Rourke, who imparted business advice and shared resources. McDonough has hosted get-togethers for other designers at her Providence studio. In 2021, O’Rourke initiated the annual High Season Markets in Maine in August, and in 2024, she began hosting them in October on the West Coast.
“We wanted to create these events that felt really good for vendors and for each other, that didn’t cost us a lot of money to do, and to be able to see our customers in person,” O’Rourke said, “because for a lot of us, our e-commerce is the thing that carries our businesses.”
Now the cohort comprises upward of a dozen designers and artisans, most of them women in their 40s whose work reflects what they want to wear. Wallack said she was motivated by the idea that “small brands could be stronger together” in attracting wholesale buyers and sharing retail customers. This is crucial in an industry where maintaining the integrity of a small, midpriced brand that champions heirloom crafts and sustainability while competing with corporations is often a losing proposition.
Putting Out a Shingle
Brick-and-mortar has been the next stage of growth: O’Rourke opened her Rudy Jude storefront in Venice, Calif., in 2019, after being exclusively online for three years. The shop sells her own line of plant-based-dyed clothing along with pieces designed by college friends from R.I.S.D., like silver bracelets and earrings from Kate Jones’s Ursa Major line and McDonough’s purses.
The first Misha & Puff boutique opened as an outlet in Newburyport, Mass., in 2021. Wallack sees the proximity of her Brooklyn shop to McDonough’s as a way to build strength in numbers while appealing to, and expanding, their overlapping consumer base.
Lao Pietri, a solo proprietor of the “teeny tiny” KasMaria, does not have a storefront, so the support of her fellow designers and boutique owners is a vital lifeline. She credits her involvement with McDonough’s group with introducing her collections to interested vendors and customers.
“I think a lot of shops — that’s kind of how they learn about new brands, through this community,” Lao Pietri said.
In June, Erica Kim, an architectural historian and incidental slow-fashion influencer (@ahistoryofarchitecture) who has 244,000 followers on Instagram, was visiting from Toronto and stopped by Lindquist Object, where Lao Pietri was hosting a pop-up. Kim wanted to meet the designer in person and try on some pieces from her latest collection.
Kim noted that with physical retail space being so expensive and department stores faltering, when high-profile shops share a few inches on a clothing rack, they’re offering smaller brands a new kind of real estate model.
Creating an Inviting Space
Shoppers’ habits have been shifting, said Emilie Gallagher, who has worked in retail for 20 years and currently manages the Lindquist space. They tend to prioritize craftsmanship and quality, and regard their purchases as an investment. “They understand that, yes, they’re buying something more expensive, but it lasts for so much longer,” she said.
“Our clients are mostly creative people, and they are who I think about when I’m designing — people who care about art and design,” McDonough said. “I like to believe we’re making beautiful, functional objects or wearable pieces of art.”
The unique apparel isn’t the only alluring factor for shoppers; the stores themselves are inviting spaces.
“With boutique shopping there is a stereotype that it’s not warm; people are intimidated to come in,” Gallagher said. “This shop is very much not like that. Everyone has a right to be here and try on these clothes.”
Her colleague Amy Andrews agreed, saying, “I try to create an environment that is warm and friendly.”
It seems to be working. Andrews regularly witnesses strangers bonding in the boutique, and shoppers introducing one another to the brand. Caroline Weaver, founder of New York City’s Locavore Guide, recently dropped by the store to pick out a bag, and stuck around because she was having a good time hanging out with the employees.
Weaver is also a fan of Kohn of Samet and got quite animated when reminiscing about a denim jacket she bought from the designer years ago when Kohn operated under her namesake label.
“We wouldn’t show together if we didn’t have similar customers,” Kohn said of the collective at large. The designers like to wear the things their colleagues make and incorporate products from their friends’ labels into their own branding imagery.
“The way I started to think about these brands together on their Instagram stories, you see them hanging out together at these events, and Lindquist, and the clothing they pair,” Kim said. “And you think, What’s that? I want that.”
Sometimes, without realizing it, they end up developing new collections in the same palette. “Lindy and I always joke that every season, we end up doing the same colors. Like, every season, their new stuff goes with my stuff,” Kohn said. “It just seems to happen.”
Wallack has noticed it, too. “I won’t necessarily share my colors ahead of time; we make things a year in advance, but then I’ll see Lindy’s making a bag that goes perfectly with that,” Wallack said. “It’s natural, because we’re all women founders and our personal style is very much the brand.”
