Why Firth & Holm Exists
I left Rhode Island for residency in the Bronx. Lincoln Hospital. The work was relentless. The city was the rest.
What surprised me wasn't the pace. It was how much I thought about home. The smell of low tide off Galilee. Cedar shingles gone grey at Bonnet Shores. The way the light goes flat at Beavertail in October. The longer I was away, the more specific that picture got.
I came back to New England as soon as I could. The coast was still the coast. I wasn't going back.
What I couldn't find, when I got home, was anything in between. New England apparel mostly lives in two camps: the kind you wear because you sailed once in 1997, and the kind that puts a whale on it and calls it done. This might be the one place New York has us beat. I didn't like that.
I wanted clothes that came out of here. Cedar shingles, salt, fog. But honest about it. No costumes. No catalog poses. Something I'd actually wear.
That's what Firth & Holm is. Apparel from Rhode Island's south shore. Made by someone who left and came back. A little bit of home, for anyone who needs one.
Paul