November 4, 2022 By Marisa Olsen
The Nantucket treasured For Now boutique now has a sister site launching in Derby Streets this week. For those customers who can’t easily get their For Now Nantucket fix, having a new boutique in the South Shore will be a welcome treat.
With a mission dedicated to showcasing and incubating emerging brands, For Now curates a rotating selection of up-and-coming companies. “Through our incubator program, we help emerging entrepreneurs with their business from marketing to funding. The brands we stand behind inspire us. And, we think they’ll inspire you too,” says co-founders Kaity Cimo and Katharine Requa.
On Wednesday, November 9 from 6-8pm, For Now is launching a holiday pop-up event with local South Shore famed artist Mer Hanson who is collaborating with the Powder Puff Collection. Come join and celebrate the opening of For Now as well as meet with Mer and shop the limited edition hand painted puff. The event is free, register here.
We had a chance to visit the Nantucket boutique and the new location, as well as speak to founders Katharine and Kaity, as well as Mer on the upcoming holiday pop-up event. Read on to discover the latest enterprise below:
Hingham Anchor (HA): Congrats on your new space! Can you begin by telling us a bit about the For Now concept?
Thank you! We are really excited for our first pop-up in Hingham.
For Now is a retail incubator which is a fancy way of saying that we do a lot behind the scenes for the brands we work with. We provide a physical and digital platform for emerging brands to get discovered and to grow their business.
For customers, For Now is a place that makes it easy to shop brands with purpose. You can come to us and feel good about supporting up-and-coming entrepreneurs that care about the same things you do: equality, sustainability, and fit.
Recently we launched, For Later, an investment fund where we invest in the high-potential brands we’ve worked with at For Now.
(HA): What sort of brands do you carry?
On the surface, we carry growing apparel and accessories brands and all of these brands fit into at least two of our Impact categories. Customers want to support small brands that are making meaningful decisions daily. We like to think of ourselves as the curator of these brands.
Beneath that, we also look for something we call the “For Now Factor.” These are brands who have a strong founder-market-fit: founders who eat, sleep and breathe their passion, and that passion is apparent to their customers. We love telling their stories, and our customers love feeling connected to the purpose behind each emerging brand.
(HA): Can you give us some information about your background and how For Now came to be?
After working side-by-side at a local fitness-wear brand (Kaity in marketing and Katharine in operations), we began For Now as a marketing and operations consulting business specializing in emerging retail and e-commerce consumer brands. We saw a lot of early stage brands wrestle to get their product physically in front of their audience; digital marketing was expensive (and complex) and the barrier to entry for brick and mortar retail was too high. So we decided to focus our efforts on solving that problem by launching a retail incubator in Boston.
Our retail incubator is a place where digital-first brands come together to acquire new customers by way of physical retail. By sharing the economics of a storefront and having For Now manage the experience, brands are able to test retail without the high risk. Not only do brands love the revenue and operational advantages of For Now, they also receive customer feedback when they first start working with us that is valuable to the growth of their business.
(HA): How is this shop different from your other concepts?
This shop is more of a continuation of what we do in other locations and online. Since this is a short-term holiday pop-up, we curated an assortment from our fan-favorite brands that are seasonally appropriate and great for gifting.
(HA): Mer, how would you describe your work?
I am a native New Yorker who made her way up the coast to Nantucket to pursue a career as a full time artist. After graduating from Wheaton College in 2011 with a degree in Fine Arts, moving to Nantucket allowed my art career to flourish. I am thrilled to embark on a new life adventure on the South Shore (and beyond) with my dog Willis!
(HA): Can you describe the Powder Puff collection puff
Teaming up with Jillian Moorhead (founder of Powder Puff Collection) on our “Aspen” Powder Puff collaboration was amazing! Our Powder Puff is a combination of Jillian’s love for golden Aspen trees and beautiful snowy mountain tops mixed with my love for detailed design using fine ink and a complimentary palette. Jillian supplied me with photos of Aspen trees that she had taken on hikes with her family which led to my preliminary sketch idea. With our Powder Puff, I created a “back into the wild” design by painting a field of golden Aspen trees and married it with ultramarine French blue hues found in the shadows of the mountains.
Whether you’re out hiking or gearing up to hit the slopes, we hope our Powder Puff will be worn with a sense of great fun and adventure!
(HA): Is there anything else you want to share with readers?
This is my first collaboration with Jillian Moorhead, and the fourth exclusive partnership that I have had the pleasure of teaming up with Katharine and Kaity on! (Talk about a dream team!) Nantucket brought us together years ago when Katharine and Kaity first opened their store doors on the island. I collaborated with a talented jewelry designer on a custom watercolor cuff, which was being sold exclusively in For Now. When I walked into For Now and met Katharine and Kaity for the first time, it was an instant friendship from the start! I am looking forward to a trip out West to officially meet Jillian and sport our collaborative Puff “in the wild!”
I spend much of my painting time solo in my studio (usually accompanied by my dog and #1 assistant, Willis!) so any opportunity to collaborate with extraordinary women such as Katharine, Kaity and Jillian makes me feel like a part of the team. This is why I love to collaborate through art and design and create these conversation pieces. As a team, we are creating wearable art and investing in one another other every step of the way!
For Now
98 Derby Street, Suite 407
Hingham, MA
(508) 687-4474