Antiques are a family trait for Zoe Hoare. “My mother is also a dealer in antiques and has played a large part in forming my sense of taste and style,” Hoare explains. Having both run independent shops in London, establishing Hoare & Hoare on Bridgehampton’s Main Street felt like a fitting next chapter. “It felt natural and important to keep the legacy going,” she says. Today, her storefront reflects a collective turning away from the mass-produced, pointing to a distinct trend toward people wanting to shop at independent dealers who offer objects with a true, unique soul.
When sourcing, Hoare bypasses the generic entirely. “What I see now is pretty much anything goes! The more unusual and unexpected, the better,” she notes. Her inventory includes weathered architectural elements alongside a remarkable cache of small, historic still-life oil paintings of fish, fruit, and seascapes. Yet classic regional sensibilities thrive. On the East End, the timeless warmth of old English pine and country furniture remains an essential anchor, celebrating what she calls the witness marks of a previous life. “Soft, muted, and sorbet colors are always good sellers,” she adds, “and blue continues to be the most popular.”
Proprietor Zoe Hoare stands at the entrance of her year-round Main Street storefront in Bridgehampton, with her rescued bulldogs, Mabel and Baxter, as the business brand’s mascots and visual identity.
Traditional earthenware and terra-cotta pots line the top of a display shelf—a nod to a lifelong connection that began in Hoare’s childhood cleaning imported, yellow-glazed Van Gogh confit pots. Hanging just above, Pollock-esque wooden painter’s palettes round out the deeply artistic scene.
A vignette at the shop entrance showcases Hoare’s signature blend of utility and design, featuring a vintage indigo children’s workwear shirt, time-worn country chairs, weathered architectural frames, and classic European enamelware.
Framed by the door of a vintage teal Ford pickup truck, Hoare wears a structured Ralph Lauren chore jacket crafted from heavy cotton drill awning fabric, a standout piece from her curated collection of utilitarian vintage apparel.
Moody, vintage seaside oil paintings lure the eye.
Small but mighty, the detailed vignettes showcase Hoare’s meticulous eye for visual assembly—an array of utilitarian vintage clothing encourages browsing.
This passion for texture extends into fashion, a clothing collection that began organically at a Madoo garden party in Sagaponack. Wearing a heavily patched, distressed vintage French jumpsuit, Hoare recalls, “I could have sold this jumpsuit many times!” That moment sparked her curation of French workwear, fisherman shirts, and structured Ralph Lauren chore jackets crafted from heavy cotton drill awning fabric. For Hoare, the graphic crossover is entirely intuitive. “It’s hard to resist a great stripe, particularly in red, white, and blue!”
But the absolute heart of the business walks on four legs. When developing her visual identity, Hoare chose a singular, character-rich bulldog emblem to anchor the Hoare & Hoare logo. At the shop, that trademark imagery comes to life through her two current companions, Mabel and Baxter, both rescued from the Long Island Bulldog Rescue. “Dogs are a wonderful and welcoming part of a shopping experience— and for a long time I’ve been an advocate for the underdogs,” she says. With their steadfast expressions, they mirror the very ethos of the time-worn pieces surrounding them.
Ultimately, Hoare’s design philosophy remains beautifully simple: embrace the imperfections, protect the legacy, and find beauty in things that have stood the test of time.
