above: Mix and match patterns in soft colors, perfect for that beach getaway. – images courtesy of designers/brands
The Caro Home Store
If the universe of towels were ruled by a monarch, Carolina Feinstein would be its queen, crowned in a tiara of low-twist terry, sans fringe. Now the Old Greenwich resident, whose beach, bath and tabletop collections have filled the shelves of major retailers including T.J. Maxx, Nordstrom, and Home Goods for three decades, is annexing a new territory: a 1,000-square-foot, sun-lit boutique in Harbor Point stocked with all the absorption a Nantucket weekender could want. Beach towels in bold, colorful stripes and motifs sit in stacks awaiting a squeeze; plush hoodie-towels decorated with hearts hang on cabana pegs; and bundled bathing kits for kids ages three to 10 pique a summer gift-giver’s curiosity. Also on offer are bath towels in eight solid colors from Feinstein’s Coventry line, which repurposes approximately 150 plastic bottles per bath sheet.
The Caro Home store, which is accessible via a verdant allee off Pacific Street, and attached to the company’s existing wholesale showroom in a converted brick warehouse, represents a bold move by the entrepreneur who has made her mark on the industry with so-called fashion towels, which now account for 20 percent of the market. Thanks to fewer twists in the yarns that are used, these vibrant and fluffy textiles distinguish themselves from the standard-issue, scratchy rectangles that hang near bathtubs worldwide.
Feinstein is a dyed-in-the-cotton designer, inspired by color and pattern wherever she encounters it—in the socks on a stranger’s ankles on the subway, on a hike through a leafy jungle, in the carpet of an airplane on an overnight flight. She grew up traveling with her family and was inspired by the visual beauty of clothing, jewelry and decor from an early age and recalls accompanying her father, an architect, to his office in her native Buenos Aires, at seven years old; there she examined blueprints and sketched ideas for the tiles of his clients’ buildings.
Textiles were her one true love, however, and before going out on her own in 2012, Feinstein spent years designing for bath-linen behemoths like the Brazilian manufacturer Karsten.
In addition to yarn-dyes, jacquards, and double-dobbies, her other love is her husband and fellow Argentine, Andres Hogg, a real-estate developer who envisions a thriving village of commercial, office, and residential buildings between Ludlow and Dock Streets. The couple met in 1989—fittingly—at Uruguay’s Punta del Este, the bucket-list destination for the bikini-and-caftan crowd, and moved to New York in 2000. Their two children are their go-to towel models.
Feinstein, who partners with factories and mills in India, Portugal, Turkey and China—and who will soon launch a tabletop line—recalls that even in elementary school she was snubbing convention, wearing orange pinafores—orange remains her signature color—when her classmates were wearing white.
“I have never done what others are doing,” she says.
Prices at the store range from approximately $10 to $45, with the exception of a small selection of bamboo-fiber bedsheets available for $200-plus per set.
Caro Home, 583 Pacific Street, Stamford, carohome.com