Welcome Aboard!

Brothers Ian and Shep Murray launched Vineyard Vines, turning retail dreams into fashionable reality.

Text by Jacquelyne Froeber

In khaki shorts and oxford shirts, Shep (far left) and Ian Murray admit they’re not on the cutting edge of high fashion. More casual than couture, the brothers favor a relaxed look that’s classically preppy—and eminently coastal. Now they’ve turned their easygoing personal style into a sartorial success story called Vineyard Vines. “Our idea is to make products that people feel good in,” Ian says.

Vineyard Vines clothes feature soft fabric, bright colors, and nautical prints inspired by Martha’s Vineyard. The company, which started in 1998 producing silk ties, now caters to men, women, and children with a complete line of clothing and accessories. “I knew there was a market for something different,” Shep says. “I just didn’t know how right I was.”

He still remembers the fashion flub that changed his life. While working for a New York City advertising agency in the late 1990s, Shep arrived at the office in the same suit and tie as his boss. If he couldn’t find unique clothes in Manhattan, he thought, there was a definite opportunity in the marketplace. “I gave my two weeks and called Ian, and he did the same,” Shep says. Together they founded the new company.

Today, Vineyard Vines’ bustling shop in Edgartown has proved their gutsy move worthwhile. On the store’s ground level, customers check out matching flip-flops and ties printed with lobsters, whales, or sea stars. Upstairs, skirts, tops, shorts, and handbags fill the shelves. “It’s like a family here,” says employee Cristin McGuinn. “Customers know us by name, and vice versa.”

Shep and Ian extend that friendly tone through their catalog and online marketing efforts. Their ties, popular with groomsmen and businessmen, also have appeared around the necks of former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. Recently, Vineyard Vines made Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the nation.

A laid-back attitude and a cheerful logo separate Vineyard Vines from other clothing lines. The signature smiling whale honors the Murrays’ father (who loved carving whales from blocks of wood), and pays tribute to an island where whaling once dominated life. The flagship store in Edgartown is surrounded by homes built by 18th-century whaling captains, and Shep married his wife, Margo, at the Old Whaling Church on Main Street.

Though these brothers have traveled together all over the world, no location has informed their business or captured their imagination like Martha’s Vineyard. “This is not just another place,” Shep says. “And we don’t sell just another article of clothing. It’s the way people want to live—it’s the great life.”

Vineyard Vines; 800/892-4982 or vineyardvines.com

Coastal Living - July - August 2007