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Traditions

For 42 years it has been an Islandmainstay, a business synonymous withall that is best about Nantucket. Duringthis time it has been a gathering place ofartists and artisans whose work it hasshowcased and celebrated.Its signature products have become Nantucket icons, cherishednot only by Islanders but also by numerous visitors that include our nation’s First Ladies, legendary designers, andmovie stars. For generations a visit to Nantucket has not beencomplete without a stop at Nantucket Looms.

The Looms is back on Main Street after a six-year hiatus onFederal Street. From the beginning, the emphasis has beennot only on high quality, but also on perpetuating traditional methods of manufacture. Although Nantucket Looms openedits doors at 16 Main Street on April 1, 1968, its origins canbe found in an enterprise begun several years earlier.

“It started in the mid-’60s under the tutelage of Mary Ann Beinecke,” current Looms owner Liz Winship noted recently. Itwas initially called the Cloth Company of Nantucket and oneof its missions was to refurbish the former Ocean House onBroad Street with hand-woven fabrics. “The whole idea wasalmost like what ReMain Nantucket is trying to do now,” Winshipsays, noting that Mary Ann and her husband Walter Beinecke, Jr., were trying to breathe new life into the downtownthrough the restoration of the Island’s grand old buildings.

Timeless

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By Steve SheppardPhotography by Jared Golen

and Courtesy of Nantucket Looms

By using age-old production techniques, the Ocean Housewas transformed into the stately Jared Coffin House, itsfurnishings harkening back to a time when weavers and artisans were respected professionals.

Master Weaver Andy Oates, a graduate of the famed BlackMountain College, was there at its inception. Sitting down todinner at the Woodbox with the Beineckes one night, Oatesrecalls, “Walter said, ‘Now, if you had lots of money on Nantucket what would you like to do?’ I said, ‘Well, if I hadlots of money I’d like to start a weaving business.’” It was justwhat the Beineckes had in mind, particularly Mary Ann,whose background was in needlery and the decorative arts.“The idea was that we would train local people to weave withthe intent that we would make fabrics for the Jared CoffinHouse. Jim Hendrix was hired as the decorator. We workedwith Mary Ann and Jim making restoration fabrics. We triedto stay within the period of the beginning of the building. Wedid everything — carpets for the hall; bedspreads for the bedrooms; silk draperies in the two living rooms; placematsfor the tables in the dining room.”

“They made beautiful fabrics that lasted well over 30 years,”Winship notes. “It was a traditional, Sturbridge Village-likelook.”

The Cloth Company set up shop at H. Marshall Gardiner’s oldphotography store at 16 Main Street. Oates oversaw production and design, with the early emphasis on production.Rather than the twentieth century image of a weaver laboring fastidiously over one piece at a time, the Cloth Company was a throwback to the days before mechanizedlooms, when hand-weavers mass - produced cloth at a rapidrate. Beginning with 10 Island women who learned to weaveunder Oates’ guidance, many Nantucketers eventually cameon board, with the steady beat of several looms working atonce providing a factory-like rhythm to the daily operation.

The Cloth Company also featured the hand-printed silkscreenfabrics of Doris and Leslie Tillettt, who set up a production studio at what is now the Sunken Ship on Lower Main Street.

Bill Euler, an assistant manager at the Plaza Hotel in NewYork, oversaw the Jared Coffin House restoration as the hotel’smanager. In 1968, he and Oates bought the Cloth Companyand renamed it Nantucket Looms.

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Weaving

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A brown, very serviceable colors. The idea was you could travelwith them or you could wear them. And they all got sold, almost immediately, and from then on we made throws, bythe thousands probably.”

One of the very first throws was bought by interior decoratorBilly Baldwin as a gift for his friend, the Baroness Philippe deRothchild, taking the Looms into the realm of internationalhaute couture.

The linen and ramie fabric, moreover, was a historic design innovation.

“We made upholstery fabric and we also made wall fabricsfor contemporary architects,” Oates recalls. “I would visit NewYork and act as salesman. I had designed this linen and ramiefabric. Ramie is a type of fiber related to linen. We used thefine linen warp thread with this heavy ramie yarn as a fill.”

On a visit to the offices of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill,Oates recalls, “One of the senior partners said, ‘Wow, whatis this fabric? I’d like to cover the walls of my office with this.’” The firm later used the same fabric for some of the buildingsit designed, including the Trump Tower. “One of our big jobs

Although weaving was still central to its mission, NantucketLooms also featured the work of Island artists whose disciplines were rooted in traditional forms.

Among those whose art found a home at the Looms wereMara Cary and her hand-crafted baskets, the ship models ofMark Sutherland, the carved birds of Pat Gardner, and thepaintings of Bobby Bushong, Paul LaPaglia, Robert Stark, andKen Layman. John and Frances Elder’s lightship baskets werefollowed by those of Karol Lindquist. Margareta Nettles’ hand-woven rag rugs were also a staple, a tradition carriedon today by Hilary Anapol. “It became known as a placewhere you could find unusual things, things you couldn’t find anywhere else, and it was all locally done,” Winship says.“The Looms recognized talent.”

From the beginning, two of the Looms’ signature items were itsmohair throws and a linen and ramie fabric, both designed byOates. The throws, or blankets, “were Doris Tillett’s originalidea,” Oates recalled. “We were making scarves and stoles(at the Cloth Company) and we had good quality mohair yarnat the time. Doris said, ‘Why can’t you make us a throw sizeout of these yarns?’ So I sat down at the loom and made somesamples. We had six mohair throw styles, they were black and

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was doing the front foyer of the lobby. We wove 130 yards.Before long, we started producing this fabric for other architects.”

Although Oates makes the design seem simple in the retelling,its creation was an artistic achievement. A few years ago aBritish trade magazine commissioned a group of designers toname the most important fabrics designed in the twentieth century.“One of the fabrics chosen was our linen and ramie,” Oatessays understatedly.

Another original idea that has stood the test of time is theLooms CPO jacket, hand-sewn from the start by Nantucketseamstress Lia Marks. “I think that is what we’re most knownfor today,” Winship says, “the throws and the jackets.”

Indeed, it’s hard to find a home on the Island without a NantucketLooms throw or an Islander who isn’t the proud owner of aone-of-a-kind CPO jacket. “Everybody you see has them,”Winship says. “I still see people wearing their original jackets;they’re generational.”

Again, Oates was instrumental in the design. “I had this ideathat we could make a tweed fabric and have it designed likethe navy’s Chief Petty Officer jacket, kind of like a shirt-jacket.

I remembered them from my days in the Navy. We designedthe tweed jacket with Lia’s help.” When approached by Oatesand Euler, Marks suggested they line the jackets with the finecotton lining the Looms had in stock.

The jackets featured ivory buttons at first, Liberty of Londonlining, and, as they still do today, hand-woven fabric. Thejackets seemed a natural progression for Lia Marks, who atfirst made hand-sewn ties from handwoven fabrics for theCloth Company, followed by a wool challis Whaler’s Shirt, “avery, very thin fine wool,” Winship notes, “with three ivorybuttons. It was a straight shirt with a large collar, a yoke, andpuffy sleeves.”

Each CPO jacket is still cut from Looms hand-woven fabricand meticulously hand-sewn by Marks. Adding to eachjacket’s unique quality is the limited yardage woven for them.“We never did fabrics that were any more than 30 yards,”Winship relates. “You might see another red one, but it wouldhave a different weave pattern.”

As she has since she made her first design, Lia does all thework herself — cutting the fabric and lining, doing all thestitching and sewing, right down to the last button.

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Demand for the jackets has always been high. “In her heyday, Lia made 365-plus shirts a year. Think of it, that’s overa shirt a day,” Winship notes.

Now in her eighties, Marks isn’t making the jackets at such arate, but every jacket sold exclusively at the Looms is madeonly by Marks from her original patterns. Family members requesting jackets are told to wait in line. Her grandson finally earned his only upon his graduation from college twoyears ago. Her granddaughter, a senior at Wheaton Collegethis year, is hopeful this will be the year for her own jacket.

Lia’s daughter, Karin Sheppard, who grew up watching theweavers at the Looms and later became a Nantucket Loomsweaver herself, vividly recalls the day she measured DustinHoffman for a jacket.

“I worked as a shopgirl summers during college. If a famousperson came in, you notified everyone so that we’d remainnonchalant and he could walk through the shop without beingfawned over. One day I went out to lunch and everyone said,‘You missed it, Dustin Hoffman was here.’ And then I was toldthat he was interested in one of Lia’s shirts, but they didn’thave his size to try on. I was disappointed and went to workthat night at my second job as a waitress. I got to work andDustin Hoffman was sitting in the restaurant with his family.When he was done eating, I mustered up my courage, introduced myself, and told him that I knew he was in the

Looms and they didn’t have his size, but if he came the nextmorning, I’d make sure he got a shirt, knowing full well thatLia abhorred making shirts from measurements.

“The next morning I called her and begged her to do a shirtif I took his measurements. I was so flustered that I actuallyhad an appointment with Dustin Hoffman. We went to wherethe fabrics were kept, and after he picked out his fabrics, hetook off his shirt so I could measure him. I just about screamed.All I could say was, you don’t have to have your bare chest,but he said, ‘Oh, I do.’ I was totally freaked out for hours afterward, but Lia made two shirts for him.”

Tom Selleck also has a jacket, as did venerated newsman JohnChancellor and Nantucket writers Nathaniel Benchley andDavid Halberstam. There are many people who own severalof Lia’s shirts and who proudly wear them year-round. “WynnHandman, the director of the American Place Theater in NewYork, wore his jacket as formal attire in the city,” Oates relates.

The people who visited the Looms were a veritable “Who’sWho” of world-wide renown. Jacqueline Onassis and Rachel“Bunny” Mellon were regular visitors. First Ladies Betty Ford,Lady Bird Johnson, and Hillary Clinton were also fans.

“The first to visit was Jackie,” Oates says, “and all the otherFirst Ladies had to come to see what it was all about.”

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Winship tells of the day Princess Grace and Prince Rainier ofMonaco stopped by.

“I had just started working there, and was told Princess Gracewas coming in and was advised on how to address her andthe Prince,” she recalls. “And there she was in front of mewearing a turban and a Nantucket sweatshirt.”

Other visting notables included Aristotle Onassis, the elusiveGreta Garbo, and members of the extended Kennedy family,including Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As it is with Lia Marks and her daughter Karin, the family aspectof the Looms is an inherent part of the business. Winship, whowas originally hired by Bill Euler for two weeks in September,1974, has called the Looms home ever since. “I am like theman who came to dinner,” she laughs. “I never left. It was oneof those things where Bill and I really got along.”

Winship took over the helm in 1993. “In February, 1993,Andy and Bill said ‘Okay, we’re out of here.’ I took over onApril 1, 1993.” Her husband, Todd, has been involved in thebusiness for years, lending a major hand in each move andshop renovation, and works in shipping and receiving today.Soon, Todd will join the Looms’ pantheon of weavers. Winship’s daughter, Bess Clarke, who has a strong businessbackground, recently came aboard to help guide the Loomsinto the twenty-first century.

The staying power of the Looms can be measured in the timelessfabrics it continues to make by hand, and in the people whowere inspired to remain weavers because of the love of thecraft passed down to them by Andy Oates and the sense ofstyle inherited from Bill Euler. Karin Sheppard wove at theLooms for 20 years before opening her own Nantucket studio,Island Weaves. Jamie Gould, now of Rogers and Goffigan,and renowned weaver Sam Kasten, got their start at the Loomsand continue to make weaving their life’s work. Becky Peranerbegan weaving at the Looms in 1992, went full-time in 1995,and is the Looms’ head weaver today.

“I loved working at the Looms, it was like a family,” KarinSheppard says. “It was like going home when you went to work.”

The new location at 51 Main Street is reminiscent of the formerLooms building at the foot of Main. “Liz felt that she wanted tobe back on Main Street, and I think she’s absolutely right,”says Oates.

“It really feels like home,” says Winship. “It feels good.” Andso the traditions begun more than four decades ago continue under Winship’s guidance, and Nantucket Looms remains proud of its strong Island connections. “Through theyears Nantucket has been a great place to experiment and tryartistic ventures,” Winship notes. “We’re still plugging away.”

Steve Sheppard is a free-lance writer and musician living on

Nantucket. He also was a weaver at Nantucket Looms.

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