On a recent gray, chilly afternoon, Fluff Alpaca—a cheery shop at 319 Main Street in Great Barrington—was doing a brisk business. One woman was buying a tiny sweater for her “grand-dog.” A mother was encouraging her adult daughter to purchase a cozy-chic chunky sweater in a flattering shade of blue. A gaggle of teens was ogling the wall of socks, and sure enough one left with a few pairs. Everyone pauses to marvel at the adorable baby gear and whimsical toy animals. On a return visit, someone was gathering skeins of yarn in a bevy of earthy shades.
Yarn happens to be the impetus behind the business for owner Suzanne Werner. A lifelong knitter, she had an epiphany while attending the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool festival, deciding she wanted to pursue animal farming after a career in law—and by doing so she and her husband Bob could realize their desire to become full-time residents of the region after decades of regular visits to the Berkshires.
After an intensive summer-long search in 2014, the couple purchased an old dairy farm in Hillsdale, New York, revitalizing the 80-acre property and naming it Green River Hollow. There they currently raise 15 alpacas along with a menagerie of other animals, including a “guardian llama.” “I wanted to see if I could grow my own yarn for my own purpose and it just got bigger and bigger, and then we got our own store,” Suzanne says.
Serendipitously, the multi-dwelling farm turned out to be an ideal setup during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it attracted her own flock of three grown children from Manhattan and Miami who quickly became enmeshed in the business.
“The pandemic threw everything up in the air. I never would have expected them all to be here, but it’s wonderful and I love it,” Suzanne says. Now Nathaniel works on the farm, Emma handles Fluff Alpaca’s robust e-commerce site, and Jamie helps tend the store. He also came up with the name (after his boyfriend suggested “Fluffy”) and is the face of the current ad campaign.
Alpaca drives the eco-friendly narrative
Putting alpaca in the name was intentional. “We like to think we have a unique story and we love to talk about alpacas and taking up farming in your fifties,” Suzanne says.
Not that they planned to raise alpacas from the start. Instead, they only landed on alpacas after ruling out sheep farming, which has a long history in the area, and discovering the animal’s many character traits. First, there was the cuteness factor. “As far as animals go, alpacas are a lot more interesting than sheep and have a distinct personality,” Jamie says.
Then there is the quality of the alpaca fiber. “I had knit with it before and appreciated its different texture.” Namely, it’s more drapey than wool, feels lightweight but is very warm, and with its hollow core can better adjust to extreme temperatures. Alpaca boasts other benefits too, including having a low “prickle factor,” making it a comfortable alternative to wool and other luxury fibers. It is also water-repellant and has moisture-wicking qualities that make it an excellent fiber for socks, no matter the season.
And, importantly for the Werners, alpaca fiber is sustainable: Lacking lanolin, it doesn’t require any harsh chemicals in the processing as does sheep’s wool. It comes in 23 natural colors and left untreated is completely biodegradable. A single alpaca can produce four sweaters per year compared to only one sweater every four years from cashmere goats.
As the family describes it, the animals are shorn once a year in June—they start off very skinny and by now have a nice big coat on them to keep them warm, which just continues growing over the winter. That distinctive “fluff” enables alpacas to be impervious to even the harshest of temperatures—family members describe the animals blithely eating their hay during at a severe blizzard (and joke that capturing that scene would be a convincing way to broadcast alpaca’s warmth quotient). Once June rolls around again, the animals are very happy to be shorn—shearing day is a big cause for celebration on the farm.
The farm sends its fiber to a trusted mill in Ohio for spinning, though they are hoping to be able to find a local solution and are eager to explore working with Nobletown Fiber Works, which opened earlier this year in Hillsdale.
The yarn is then made into hand-knitted items—think strawberry baby beanies and scrumptious booties—by Suzanne’s own mother and some of her friends. For Jamie and Emma, seeing customers looking at something their grandmother made (and that is the exact replica of what they wore when they were little) is a special point of pride.
Besides selling the Fluff Alpaca line, they source many of their basics—mittens, gloves, hats, and scarves—from the New England Alpaca Fiber Pool (NEAFP, pronounced NEEF), a domestic fiber processor and manufacturer in Fall River, Mass. According to Suzanne, NEAFP functions like a fiber bank whereby alpaca farms who contribute fiber to the pool earn points towards the purchase of products at a discount on the wholesale business.
The bulk of the knitwear, however, comes from Peru, the capital of alpaca production, and from fair-trade companies that seek to support Andean artisan communities that handcraft alpaca wool blankets, clothing, and accessories—and preserve an ancient craft. Think of it as buying local from afar—and helping to preserve an old-world tradition.
Rounding out the curated inventory are products by values-aligned vendors, both local and from New York City and elsewhere. These include alpaca knits and home goods along with (non-alpaca) letterpress paper goods and apothecary items (hand-poured candles, small-batch skincare) as well as organic cotton products for infants. The unifying thread is the Werners’ commitment to supporting independent (most notably women-owned) enterprises and celebrating a community of quality makers. Even if you are not a conscious shopper, you’ll appreciate the caliber of the goods—just try to resist cuddling the irresistibly furry and stylish hats and headbands.
The overarching goal is to be a place where you can find something for everyone, or what Jamie deems “Fluff for the whole family.”
Challenges and opportunities in the Berkshires
Certainly, opening a retail shop during a prolonged pandemic might be seen as a risky endeavor, but the family wasn’t starting from scratch. The Great Barrington location is the second iteration of Fluff Alpaca, which the family had been running on Warren Street in Hudson, New York, for almost four years. (It was adjacent to Baba Louie’s, so they see that as a nice bit of continuity.) Even then, Suzanne took over an existing business that was owned by friends. “We basically bought the shop with all the fittings and inventory and then completely rebranded it and expanded the offerings by bringing in a lot of new lines,” Emma says.
They decided to make the jump to Great Barrington when the lease came up—the ownership of the building had changed hands and there was too much uncertainty around the space. The idea of Great Barrington as a possible location had been brewing for some time. “We love Hudson and we had a great time there, but now we’ve cut our commute by about two-thirds and that has made it so much easier,” Suzanne says. And Great Barrington is where they came to do their grocery shopping and where they had a family connection, so it made sense on multiple levels.
What clinched the move was seeing the vacant retail space (formerly occupied by Hey Day!) “The bones of the place were exactly what we had been envisioning. We knew we could add our own flair and bring in our own color scheme by painting the floors and the facade,” Jamie says. Expansive windows were another feature, allowing Susan Silverman (an honorary member of the family) to create welcoming and photogenic window displays.
Suzanne reports feeling instantly embraced by the local business community, starting with the management company. “They were very helpful, we were happy with the terms, and we were able to move in immediately.” Other shop owners began dropping by before they even opened their doors to introduce themselves. Robin Helfand, owner of Robin’s Candy, has been especially helpful by organizing the monthly Great Barrington Entrepreneurs Forums. And in the estimation of the Forum members, Fluff is filling a void rather than directly competing with other shops in town.
Admittedly, Hudson offers a different clientele from the Berkshires, even though they both draw visitors and second- (or now first-) homeowners from the city. But as the Werners see it, the Hudson market is younger and more transient, whereas the Berkshires is much more family-oriented and feels like a full community consisting of people who have grown up here; even second-homeowners seem to be well established in the area.
That has translated into an uptick in both quantity and price points. Whereas in Hudson people would buy two pairs of socks, Berkshire customers tend to buy four or more. Sarah reports selling more of the oversize sweaters (with close to a $300 price tag) here in a day than they ever did in Hudson.
“Our style is very chic and classic at the same time, and a lot of that didn’t translate in Hudson, where people weren’t as willing or able to spend the money on these investment pieces,” Emma says, pointing out that the shop does still offer some edgier pieces. Four months in, Jamie says they are still getting a feel for what people are looking for and adjusting the inventory accordingly.
They are also looking forward to ski season when families come off the slopes and into town—being between two ski resorts is another benefit of being in the Berkshires.
On the other hand, they often fielded requests for corporate holiday gifts in Hudson but have yet to tap into that market here. (Though Rudolf Steiner sent their families to Fluff Alpaca to load up on warm clothing for its outdoor education program.) Same for the Berkshire’s wedding industry. “Hudson was also all about weddings—people would buy matching Fluff baseball caps,” Jamie says. They hope to replicate that significant revenue stream here once the season picks up in spring. Same for being embraced as a go-to destination for holiday gift-giving, similar to how the Hudson store drew people from all over Columbia County at this time of year. They’ve even had former customers come in and say, ‘Oh we thought you were gone, we are so happy to find you before the holidays.'”
One devoted shopper even flew his own private plane to the Great Barrington Airport (aka Walter J Koladza Airport) just so he could visit the new location, riding his scooter there and back and then having his purchases shipped to his house.
Riding out the pandemic
Thus far, the persistent supply chain shortages have not proven much of a disruption, mostly because of the way the fashion industry places orders at least six months ahead of each season. At most, the February orders were delayed until October, but the shop had more than enough inventory to see it through that extra month.
And the Werners realize they were lucky to hire two new employees in the midst of a labor shortage (one of whom is wearing the red hat in the group photo), and just in time for the seasonal crush.
But they credit the e-commerce site with seeing them through the worst of the pandemic and with providing stability to steer the shop through the inevitable ebbs and flows of retail in the Berkshires. Emma says it has been consistently growing 300 percent year over year and in the past week alone they shipped hundreds of orders to almost every part of the country. “It’s like having a second store since practically every item is pictured so tourists can wait to shop once they get back home.”
As nice as that digital presence is for the bottom line, the Werners are all about creating community. “We want people from all parts of the Berkshires, not just the weekenders,” Jamie says.
It seems they are onto something. They already have a long list of people who want to participate in the knitting lessons the shop plans to offer, starting in the spring after Suzanne’s mother moves to the family farm (making it a three-generational compound).
“It’s amazing to think that 150 years ago this was the center of wool production in the whole country. There were hundreds and thousands of sheep. When you walk up into the hills, you can see the stone walls where the land was all cleared,” Suzanne says. “Then you have these huge textile mills in Housatonic and Philmont and in other places that were shipping wool all over the world, and now it’s hard to find people who even know how to knit. We are here to change that.”
