Through the nineteenth century Westport became famous for a humble crop — it was a noted onion-farming center, an "Onion Capital" whose fields and the Saugatuck wharves shipped produce out along the Sound. The railroad and the mills came, and then, around 1910, something unexpected: artists. Westport became one of America's great arts colonies, home to the Famous Artists School and, from 1931, the Westport Country Playhouse in a converted 1835 tannery. By the mid-twentieth century it had become an affluent New York commuter town — but the Sound, the Saugatuck, and the Minute Man were still right where they had always been.
Today Westport is known for its beaches, its theater, and a shoreline elegance that has never lost its Revolutionary bones. Its story blends a colonial shipping village, the 1777 landing at Compo, an 1835 town, an onion-farming past, and an arts colony that drew the country's illustrators and players. Our Westport designs gather that identity into wearable form — Compo Beach, the Minute Man, the Saugatuck, the Sound. Explore the collection and carry a little of the Westport shore with you.
Why People Visit Westport Connecticut
- Spend a day at Compo Beach, the town's Sound-front park, and find the Minute Man statue on the bluff above the 1777 landing site.
- Walk the Saugatuck River waterfront and the historic Saugatuck village, the colonial shipping center the town grew from.
- Catch a show at the Westport Country Playhouse, founded in 1931 in a converted 1835 tannery, or a summer concert at the Levitt Pavilion.
- Browse downtown Main Street and the river walk, with shops and galleries near the water.
- Visit Sherwood Island State Park, Connecticut's first state park, in the Greens Farms section of town.
- Read up at the Westport Library before exploring the town's deep arts-colony history.
