Swaying date palms, drifts of flowering bougainvillea, an aura of romance—the American siblings Pat Starr and Amos Morrill had these elements of Antigua in mind when they began a resort-wear company there in 1949 called Coco Shop. Inspired by the Caribbean island they called home, their premise was straightforward: Sew easy-to-wear-in-the-heat silhouettes in 100 percent cotton emblazoned with Morrill’s sketches of the native flora and fauna. For almost seventy years, that hyperlocal approach beguiled the jet set and locals alike. Their boutiques in the capital, St. John’s, and at the Antiguan airport thrived.
After the deaths of Starr and Morrill, though, Coco Shop eventually closed in 2017—just as Taylor Simmons was graduating with her MBA, with an eye on retail. Simmons, whose grandparents were the founders’ neighbors on Antigua, had grown up visiting the island on holidays, often decked out in Coco Shop as she played barefoot on the beach. “I loved the brand,” she recalls, “and I just reached out, not knowing what I was getting myself into.” The founders’ families were delighted that someone with local ties wanted to revive the company, and Simmons set to work, launching her version of Coco Shop in 2019.
“What they did was so distinct,” she says, “and people have held onto their things from decades ago. My dad still wears his Coco Shop shirts from the seventies and eighties.” Simmons aims to preserve that timeless quality. “Amos Morrill drew what he saw on the island, like frangipani, pineapple, limes, fish, and coral, and used screens to print his motifs on cotton. We’ve changed the colorways on those prints, but I have tried to keep things as close to the original product as I can.”
Hints of the traditional silhouettes endure, too, including in the scoop-neck dress and the beloved men’s button-down, with new looks peppered in. Case in point: a peekaboo basket-weave skirt, a riff on a piece Simmons loved from her grandmother’s sixties-era wardrobe, that can be worn with the accompanying high-waisted shorts or even over a swimsuit. “I’ve tried to update but to also keep things very, very simple,” she says.
While most of the apparel currently gets sewn in New York, Simmons turns to locals to stitch special projects, such as custom tablecloths and napkins featured in Antiguan resorts and, occasionally, on the shop’s website. “When I took over Coco Shop, I started to get to know the island in a different way,” she says. “I was really struck by the seamstresses who were excited to sew Coco Shop pieces because their mothers and grandmothers had sewn for the brand.”
After a slow start during the pandemic, Coco Shop benefited from those eager for a tropical respite in its aftermath—and the clothes to match. “Our customers are often people who live somewhere warm or travel somewhere warm often,” Simmons says of her clients in the South and beyond. In addition to the Coco Shop website, she offers the collection at luxury resorts in tropical locales as far west as Mexico and at such boutiques as Le Weekend in Birmingham, Alabama.
Simmons just launched Coco Shop’s resort capsule, one of four releases a year. And new patterns are flitting in her head. “I don’t have a lifetime of prints by Amos Morrill,” she explains. “I’m looking for new Antiguan artists to draw things.”
