‘Our Styling and Design Are Perfect for New Canaan’: New Women’s Clothing Shop ‘Hamptonite NY’ Opens on Elm Street

A brand-new company that’s launching three women’s clothing shops simultaneously in Fairfield County has opened its doors on Elm Street.

Stephanie Luciano (L) and McKenzie Clippinger (R) of Hamptonite NY, just opened at 134 Elm St. in New Canaan (just up from Franco’s Wine Merchants). Credit: Michael Dinan

All of the clothes at Hamptonite NY are original in make and design, and form what regional manager Stephanie Luciano called “a resort-style collection.”

“We feel that these are resort-style towns,” Luciano said of New Canaan, where Hamptonite opened Friday, Greenwich, where the company opened a storefront last month, and Westport, opening soon.

Asked what made New Canaan a good fit, Luciano said: “Because we feel that our styling and our design are perfect for New Canaan.”

Hamptonite NY opened in the space formerly occupied by Butler Fine Art. Credit: Emilia Savini

“If you walk around the streets downtown or go to the schools, that’s what you see,” she said from the shop’s floor at 134 Elm St., formerly Butler Fine Art. “Everybody has this one sort of style: Casual, comfortable, colorful. They love color and we have great colors here.”

Owned by two business partners, the brand has an in-house designer—a woman who graduated from Parsons School of Design and whom Luciano called “very, very talented”—and features “easy, comfortable pieces,” each of which range in size from extra-small to extra-large.

They’re “all done with very fine fabrics,” she said.

“We use 100 percent cotton and 100 percent linen. Silks, some blends, but all of the fabrics are very high quality. We have a little bit of everything. We are very well known for our shirts. We have hand-printed cotton shirts and we have lots and lots of patterns and colors that people just love, and very good prices.”

The shop intends to join the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, Luciano said.

Tucker Murphy, executive director of the chamber, said she checked out Hamptonite’s offerings “and was so impressed.”

“Stephanie seems to understand New Canaan already,” Murphy said. “We are looking forward to working with them to help grow their business.”

The business will be involved in the community and “we want to get involved in events,” Luciano said.

“We want people to know we are here because we really think we have a product that they’re going to love,” she said.

Hamptonite is open seven days per week: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 12 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Website and Grand Opening celebration to come. Here’s where it is: