You know you’re doing something right when a phrase you trademarked years ago suddenly seems to be everywhere. That’s currently the case for Clark Hamilton Chaine and Andrew Adam Addotta, founder/proprietors of the Uptown Kingston clothing boutique Hamilton & Adams. Especially since COVID, and even more so in the summertime, urban sophisticates from the New York Metro Area all want to get upstate and chill. And all that merchandise with the Upstate & Chill® slogan that you’re seeing all over right now – that’s proprietary to Chaine and Addotta.
Now spanning three adjacent shops in the old Kingston Opera House building at the corner of John and Fair Streets in the Stockade Historic District, Hamilton & Adams got its start as a glimmer in Chaine and Addotta’s eyes on a Small Business Saturday back in November 2016. They’d been talking about opening a shop together for a long time, and had set their sights on Kingston as a city with good bones, rich history and growth potential since moving to Stone Ridge in 2012 (while maintaining careers in New York City – Addotta in retail, Chaine in marketing).
The space they discovered at 32 John Street had just been vacated by the local office of the Democratic National Committee, but the pair were able to see a potential for rebirth beyond the lingering air of sadness and defeat in the wake of the 2016 election. Leasing it was an uncharacteristically quick and impulsive decision, Addotta says, and fortuitous, as it turned out. By April 2017, the first iteration of the Hamilton & Adams boutique – referred to today as The Library – was open for business, selling high-quality casual menswear with a vintage design vibe.
It didn’t take long to find its customer base: a mix of local residents, second homeowners and weekenders, mainly in the 35-to-55 age range. The shop has expanded twice since then to adjacent stores: The Atrium, facing Fair Street, where they launched their women’s clothing collection in 2020, and the space in between, now called The Lodge. All three welcome shoppers with rustic, homey décor. There’s a quarter-cord of firewood stacked in one corner, 1930s issues of National Geographic suspended from one wall, exposed brick on another, original pressed-tin ceilings, an old pharmacy prescription case repurposed as shelving, Addotta’s collections of antique maps and suitcases, live houseplants.
As Addotta tells the story, graphic tees weren’t originally on the radar as a store specialty, and Chaine the marketing expert was dubious when he tried to talk him into launching the Upstate & Chill® line that first year of business. (According to Wikipedia, 2017 was about three years after the phrase “Netflix and chill” had transitioned from describing an innocent pastime to a broadly understood proposition of a sexual nature, within the Twitterverse.) “He agreed, but told me to place the minimum order. We sold all the Upstate & Chill® line in the first ten days.” They immediately knew they were onto a winning formula, and applied for a registered trademark, which was granted in 2018.
The new brand got an unexpected big boost in 2020, when Last Week Tonight with John Oliver featured a long piece on how to debunk wacko pandemic-related conspiracy theories. The segment ended with a shot of Paul Rudd – well-known movie actor and co-owner of Samuel’s Sweet Shop in Rhinebeck – drinking out of an Upstate & Chill® mug while urging critical thinking about what one sees on the Internet.
“The morning after that episode aired, I woke up and we had all these orders,” Addotta recalls. “Paul Rudd has been in here a handful of times. We also do all their tee-shirts and apparel swag. We created a special tee-shirt for them that says ‘Upstate & Candy.’ It’s one of their best-sellers.”
If you feel like you’ve seen Upstate & Chill® shirts – and baseball caps and mugs and cocktail glasses – everywhere you go in the mid-Hudson of late, it’s because more and more other local retailers are picking up the popular line. They’re available at Cocoon in New Paltz, Finch in Hudson, Newburgh Vintage Emporium, Elizabeth Boutique in Poughkeepsie and Josie’s Coffee Shoppe in Saugerties, among other locations. Occasionally someone else will try to market merchandise with an unauthorized “Upstate and Chill” design, but their efforts get nipped in the bud. “We have a friend who’s a trademark lawyer,” Addotta says. “It felt good to send a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Amazon.”
Having to flex legal muscle occasionally is the antithesis of what Hamilton & Adams stands for, however. Upstate & Chill® is one iteration of Chaine and Addotta’s retail vision of adventure travel, expressed as the slogan “Stay Curious” and its binoculars logo. This summer’s seasonal promotional campaign is The Great American Road Trip: Lower the Windows, Fire up the Tunes (there’s even a suggested song playlist posted on the H&A website). Among the shop’s most popular design lines are the Catskills Adventure series of tees, promoting hiking, biking and camping, and the Native Guide series, with graphics illustrating trees, birds, mammals or flowers. “We’re big nature folks,” Addotta says.
H&A’s clothing lines include “about 70 other brands,” among them Red Wing, Levi’s, Pendleton, The North Face, Marine Layer and Schott. What they have in common are high quality, comfort, suitability to an active outdoor life, form that follows function. “Our thing is, ‘Is it soft?’” Addotta says. The signature graphic tees are printed locally, at Antilogy in Kingston, with water-based inks on 60/40 cotton-blend fabric that uses recycled polyester. They come in both long- and short-sleeved styles. You can even get baby onesies imprinted with Upstate & Chill®.
With this particular branding, the question inevitably arises: What do you say to people who don’t believe the Hudson Valley qualifies as “upstate” New York? Addotta, a Buffalo native, shrugs off any controversy over the question. “If you’re getting in the car and going north, you’re going upstate. To me, it includes all the regions. Anybody who gets too worked up about it really needs to calm down.”
Hamilton & Adams’ autumn collection – expanding the shop’s selection of vintage postcard graphics, among other new offerings – will be launched on August 27. In the meantime, says Addotta, “There’s tons of stuff on sale,” with the summer collection marked down 30 to 50 percent. Shipping is free for orders of $75 or more, but this is a “destination” boutique that takes the concept of retail as a recreational experience seriously. For a foretaste of what’s available at the shop, visit https://hamiltonandadams.com or www.instagram.com/HamiltonandAdams.
Join the family! 
