Luxury brand consultant Michal Kurtis’s Tracy Anderson classes in Tribeca have been awfully quiet lately. “The member-only classes I go to are pretty much empty, because [everyone is] in the Hamptons,” Kurtis says. “None of the people of the wealthier calibre are here.”
Kurtis has spent the bulk of her summer in the city, and has received plenty of brand event invites. Only this summer, very few have been in New York City. “Of the 75 event invitations I’ve had over the course of the summer, if I had to guess, 90 per cent are in the Hamptons,” she says. “Every time I respond, I have to tell them I’m not out East.”
Kurtis may not be spending her summer days on the east end of Long Island, but many wealthy US residents are. This summer, as Americans travel less overseas, fashion and beauty brands are popping up closer to home, capturing the wealthy shoppers idly spending their summertime ‘out East’ or ‘on the Vineyard’ (Martha’s Vineyard, that is).
Long Island Rail Road train conductors said it’s the busiest summer they’ve seen, and recent years have witnessed record-breaking visitor spending. This summer, city-to-Hamptons courier company Tote Taxi reported a sharp uptick in bookings on last year, says founder Danielle Candela. “Mini moves [Tote Taxi’s $895 summer travel package] have practically doubled, and we’re increasingly being used to reset or rotate homes between guests or family members,” she says. “This summer has been one of our busiest and most dynamic yet.”
The same goes for coastal Massachusetts. In 2022, data showed that Nantucket is on track to host 100,000 visitors on a peak summer day by 2030 (up from 60,000 in 2021). This year, visitors are paying influencer Kylie Swanson — herself spending the summer on the island for the first time — $3,800 for four days at ‘Camp Nantucket’, Swanson’s newly created retreat. ShopMy, meanwhile, took its employees to Newport, Rhode Island, for its company retreat; the town is topping records for summer visitors.
For brands, heading out East is a no-brainer, says Malcolm Carfrae, founder of branding and strategic communications firm Carfrae Consulting, who has produced many a Hamptons event. “It’s a high-net-worth group that’s a captive audience,” he says. TWP opened its first Hamptons store in May 2024. “TWP is a New York-based brand, so a lot of our community is out there for the summer,” says founder Trish Wescoat Pound. “Following our customer out there felt like the right next step for the brand.”
Brands are meeting these wealthy shoppers where they are, and shuttling (or flying) in talent from the city to supplement. Giorgio Armani celebrated its Mare 2025 collection pop-up at fashion-favourite Sunset Beach hotel (owned by André Balazs of Chateau Marmont) on Sunset Beach with a dinner and night at the hotel. The pop-up itself was open from 25 July to 3 August.
Weeks earlier, Dôen celebrated its Nantucket store opening with a brand trip to the Massachusetts island, where J Crew popped up the month prior. TWP hosts bi-weekly backgammon tournaments at its Sag Harbor and Southampton stores, with TWP gift cards up for grabs. Suzie Kondi and Ba&sh hosted a summer soirée at the latter’s Southampton store (after debuting a branded Jitney bus to ferry attendees out). Saks and Amazon Fashion consummated their partnership with a series of events in the Hamptons earlier this month. And that doesn’t even begin to account for the many brand brunches, lunches and dinners scattered throughout the season, courtesy of everyone from Victoria Beckham to Max Mara.
Brands popping up in the Hamptons and nearby coastal towns is nothing new. But summer 2025 has hit an apex, experts agree. Luxury brands are now fixtures in the Hamptons, complementing — and sometimes supplementing — European events with local activations. “It’s a matter of brands keeping up with each other in a highly lucrative market with national buzz and strategically engaging their audiences in the places they reside and spend money,” Carfrae says.
“We’ve reached peak Hamptons,” says Sophie Roche Conti, founder of brand and culture communications agency Conti Communications. It’s been brewing for some time, Carfrae adds. “It’s been happening steadily over the last couple of years to the point where many luxury brands are now doing an annual event in the Hamptons,” he says. In Conti’s view, this is why we’re already seeing a shift (albeit a small one) to alternative coastal hotspots. “The move towards activating in new locations like Nantucket provides a sense of novelty while also targeting a parallel core affluent demographic,” she says.
Locals only
Many luxury customers spend their summers in these coastal destinations. Kondi, who launched a Hamptons-themed collaboration with French label Ba&sh, says a large percentage of clients have houses out East where they spend “months at a time”. “Shopping is a big part of the Hamptons summer — especially in Amagansett, which has such an interesting, eclectic and curated mix of stores,” she says.
The Dôen founders always try to use their openings as opportunities to blend with the local community. In Nantucket this summer, they hosted a dinner with their friend Sarah Lanni who spent her childhood summers on the island. “These dinners have allowed us to meet and connect with so many women who cherish these summer towns,” says co-founder and designer Margaret Kleveland. “We love meeting the women who the shops will serve regularly and wanted to have some time to connect while we were on the island.”
As a rule, Hamptons event attendees differ from your standard city brand events, experts say. “There is always a meaningful core group who are selective on what they go to and are press-worthy,” Carfrae says. “A truly authentic Hamptons event will include a majority of Hamptons locals with a smattering of people from the city or elsewhere to mix things up.”
This core group is Hamptons-specific. “The events in the Hamptons gear more towards a socialite-type guest versus in the city, where it’s more about exposure via the young TikTokers,” Kurtis says. “In the Hamptons, you’re getting the bigwigs, the Fidi wives, the Wall Street wives. You definitely have a different guest list out there.” The guest list often overlaps. At a lunch for candle brand Baobab in Montauk this summer, attendees shared schedules; a portion of guests were on their way to the same brand event following the lunch.
It’s not just locals, either. As Gen Z gets wealthier, more and more young people are spending weekends out East, sharing hotel rooms and houses between groups. “When I was 21, even if a couple of friends and I got together to put in cash to share a summer home, I don’t think we would’ve been able to cover it,” Kurtis says. “But these days, the young kids are doing that, so [brands] get the whole demographic out there.” For Kondi, a lot of discovery comes from these weekenders. “Others come for weekends throughout the season and often discover us that way or through word of mouth,” she says.
When it comes to press and talent that brands would typically invite to one of their events, the Hamptons (or further) is a harder sell. Brands are realising that they have to offer transport, says Kurtis, who has noted a shift from follow-up emails offering cars, to inclusion of sprinter vans off the bat. Still, like many city dwellers, Kurtis only attends events when brands will host her overnight (this was the case for TWP and Armani, both of which she attended). “It’s cost versus opportunity for me to spend six hours in a car to promote someone’s lunch,” she says.
Kondi took this transport-assist one step further, launching a branded Jitney to take guests between her Manhattan and Hamptons stores. “The Jitney is just so iconic Hamptons. Everyone’s taken it at some point — it’s practically a rite of passage,” she says. For those who aren’t keen on a three-hour bus ride, Kondi hopes that a branded trip might have added appeal. “It wasn’t just about getting people to the event,” she says. “It was about making the journey itself part of the experience.”
More shops, more brands, more competition — more fatigue?
This summer, branding has taken over the Hamptons. Jitney passengers are met with LL Bean Boat and Totes and Glow Recipe samples (if they board on the right day). Guests waiting in line at the Surf Lodge — one of the Hamptons’s first brand pop-up go-tos — are met with a plethora of branded activations. Kurtis, who went this summer, recalls a step and repeat, a branded ice cream truck and a branded photo booth.
It’s kept Tote Taxi booked and busy. Brooklyn-based bakery L’Appartement 4F used the travel firm to ferry croissants from the city to its Hamptons pop-up, and it’s currently working with Vestiaire Collective for the pre-owned platform’s East Hampton and Montauk pop-ups. “We’ve also partnered with emerging fashion and beauty brands looking for a trusted delivery partner to support seasonal activations,” Tote Taxi’s Candela says. “With more retail moving outside the city during peak months, we anticipate this will be a continued area of growth.”
Is there such a thing as too much? Perhaps. “How many events can you attend?” Kurtis asks. “There are trunk shows and lunches and sales events and press events and launches. Maybe the second time around it’s going to be less sexy if you’ve already hosted something at The Crow’s Nest.”
Bar events, however, summers are relatively quiet for brands, and with European brands on holiday for the month of August, it’s a chance for American labels and outposts to capture US consumers. Carfrae, for one, sees no signs of fatigue on the brand nor consumer side. It’ll just come down to who does it best. “Attendees [and media and VIPs] will become more selective over which events they will choose to attend,” he says. This means brands need to up the ante — whether it’s hosting more overnights, booking more lavish venues (or private homes with a sense of intrigue), or coming up with perks that others can’t compete with.
This overconcentration of brand activity is why brands are now branching out beyond the Hamptons to destinations like Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Kurtis received a couple of these invites also, but didn’t attend. “I’ve seen those brands have had to fly people out, or boat them out,” she says. This is another reason the Hamptons reigns supreme: it’s just a train, a sprinter van, or, if you’re lucky, a plane away.
Tote Taxi, considering the expanding sphere of vacationers, is exploring a Boston to Cape Cod route for summer 2026. “Cape Cod shares a lot of the same logistical challenges as the Hamptons — limited delivery options, high seasonal volume and the need for white-glove service,” Candela says. “There’s also a growing opportunity with colleges in the region like Brown, Yale and others,” she says, referencing both the next gen and their visiting families.
It’s a win for brands keen to offer something new. The Dôen sisters plan to continue looking for opportunities in these types of towns. “We’re planning to keep these more seasonal shops open each summer and throughout the year,” says co-founder and CEO Margaret Kleveland. “There’s a special summer energy on the East Coast, a true emergence from a long, cold winter that everyone celebrates. It’s so joyful and we’ve really enjoyed expanding into these small, coastal towns.”
Conti expects that brands will continue to look to alternative and fresh coastal towns for summers to come. “I suspect brands will continue to look for new affluent resort towns with scenic views to activate in,” she says. “Maine 2026?”
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