'Revolutionary' fashion comes to Scotts Corners

A stylish, sustainable "upcycled" denim look. RENTRAYAGE PHOTO

By JOYCE CORRIGAN  

Rentrayage, the recently opened sustainable fashion and home shop in Scotts Corners, is part of the quiet revolution that’s been reshaping fashion over the past decade. Stitch by stitch, visionary retailers — rather than big-name designers or once-omnipotent fashion editors — have been unravelling and rewriting the narrative of America’s $400 billion fashion industry.

Today’s top shops are as much cultural spaces as retail stores, often incorporating art galleries, cafés, designer pop-ups and immersive events. They don’t simply sell clothes; they weave tales about the clothes and they curate. (Don’t be surprised to find a Brooklyn collage artist dabbing away at a canvas on site at Rentrayage.)

What gives? In an increasingly anonymous, technology-driven world, independent shop owners get up close and personal with customers, seeing them in their natural habitat, hearing about what they want. Often, they take their brands on the road, meeting clients where they go for the weekend or vacation. This past weekend, Rentrayage did a pop-up in Nantucket, Mass., while its Westchester Avenue shop welcomed a steady stream of shoppers.

“I was missing stores,” said founder Erin Beatty, a New York designer whose résumé includes Tory Burch, Gap, and her own label, Suno. “With Rentrayage, I had set out to recreate my favorite store memories: being in a cool space, chatting with salespeople and trying things on.”

Beatty launched Rentrayage in New York’s Soho in 2019 with a distinctive premise: carrying a handful of hand-picked designers who would transform “upcycled” textiles — discarded fabrics reimagined into fresh, new  higher-value products. The archaic French word “rentrayage” means “to reweave” or “make whole again,” and if this all sounds rather quaint, in fact, it’s a stark challenge to fashion’s longest-held assumptions: buy new, discard old, and more-is-more. Rentrayage prefers five beautifully crafted jackets made from reclaimed textiles to 5,000 mass-produced ones.

“The unique beauty of a Rentrayage garment,” Beatty said, “is in its history, scarcity and evidence of human hands.”

After successful outposts in Hudson, and Washington Depot and Kent, both in Connecticut, Rentrayage set their sights on the Bedford-Pound Ridge area following a standout appearance at November’s The Ticking Tent, a sold-out luxury market of antiques, fashion, home furnishings and artisan goods that attracted roughly 1,200 visitors to Bedford Village.

“My colleague Sasha Iglehart knew the area because her father had lived in Bedford and insisted we exhibit at TTT,” Beatty recalled. “She was right — we connected with clients immediately. Luxury today is being able to live much of your life outdoors, ideally in the country. There’s a confidence about women in this area. They’re fashionable but casual. And nobody is trying to show off.”

Iglehart, whose storied career includes senior editorial stints at ELLE and Harper’s Bazaar, said the response at The Ticking Tent confirmed they had found a core customer. 

“Ticking Tent fans knew they’d discover a select roster of antique dealers and brands that celebrated craftsmanship and sustainability,” she said. “They instinctively understood our mission to keep viable clothes and textiles in circulation.”

Iglehart designs A Shirt Story, a collection Rentrayage has carried since its founding. The line was inspired by the well-worn Brooks Brothers Oxford shirts her father used to wear.

“I always noticed they got better and softer with age,” she said. “I believe you really do need to feel clothes before you buy them.”

Several years ago, she gathered a stack of her father’s discarded shirts and, as she put it, “went crazy with my scissors. Basically, I exaggerated the frayed cuffs and collars that were already aging gracefully,” she recounted. “In order to breathe new life into them, I added crystal buttons.” 

Sustainability that sparkled — and a fashion label was born.

Beatty further strengthened her dream team by bringing in another renowned industry veteran, Kate Dimmock, who’d been fashion director at Town & Country, People StyleWatch and Amazon Fashion — whose manifesto was nothing less than “the democratization of fashion” — connecting small designers and sellers to anyone in the world who could access the internet. 

“Some people might consider what Rentrayage sells as refined and reimagined vintage,  but it’s  more radical than that,” Dimmock noted. “It’s accomplishing two things: ensuring nothing ends up as waste in the ecosystem and supporting independent designers. This is more than a fashion trend — it needed to happen.”

For Beatty, the philosophy extends well beyond sustainability. “What we promote is thoughtful, highly curated clothing with a conscience,” she concluded. “So much of the world is being told what to do and what to wear by technology that creativity has become homogenized. Which, frankly, is boring. Offering an alternative to that, we really are the rebels.”

Rentrayage is located at 69 Westchester Ave., Pound Ridge.