"When people think of Maine, they think of dogs and boats and lobster and blueberry pie," says Alex Carleton, the creator of the Portland-based clothing label Rogues Gallery. Sitting in the dining room of his cliff-top Cape Elizabeth house, no more than a dozen yards from the crashing Atlantic, it's difficult to envision a more cheerfully picturesque patch of Vacationland — the Portland Head Light blinks outside in the gray morning; lobstermen are hauling up traps in the cove below; and Ranger, Carleton's Brittany spaniel, is running along the craggy coastline working the scent of a couple of harbor seals.
But at Carleton's rustic digs, a starkly different narrative of Maine also unfolds. The two-story cedar-shingled house, built in the 1930s, is filled with New England antiques and folk art dating back to precolonial times. The Maine represented here is grittier, more authentic, and, in some cases, sharper than the one summer tourists take in while chowing down on fried clams. "That's a little dark," Carleton says, eyeing the red-and-white eel spear hanging above the dining table. "It's not just a cute little anchor. It has a sense of bravado and adventure, of grrrgh!"
Similarly, before Rogues Gallery came along, most nautical-inspired clothing resembled something out of Thurston Howell III's closet. This fall's lineup, which Carleton describes as "rock 'n' roll Field & Stream," includes reimagined fisherman's sweaters, ink-drenched corduroy blazers, and rustic flannels turned out in Day-Glo colors. His tight-knit staff of around 20 works in a converted old warehouse in downtown Portland, just a few blocks from the waterfront and the recently opened Rogues Gallery store.
Carleton, who is 38 and showing a few weathered gray strands in his beard, made his own adventure here from New York nine years ago. "I think I thought this was going to be for a few months, and it's been like a decade." In that time, he's trawled the state to build up his collection of maritime antiques, regional art, and any object that speaks of New England's rough-hewn past. "I don't like just to have antiques — I like to go through piles of old stuff, find things, and clean them," he says while flipping through 19th-century daguerreotypes of tough men surviving even tougher conditions: loggers, ice harvesters, cod fishermen. "Rogues Gallery was born out of me sitting in this house on a cliff by the ocean surrounded by all this old stuff with no television."
Today, Carleton is hopped up on high-test coffee and blondies from Scratch, a local bakery, and playing tour guide. One of his most prized possessions is a large cabinet downstairs in the laundry room. This is where, five years ago while working at L. L. Bean, he redyed men's T-shirts into neo-gothic classics, which became Rogues Gallery's first hit. The armoire-size specimen is wrapped in gray sailcloth for weatherproofing; it came off a 19th-century fishing schooner and once housed signal flags to communicate with the mother ship. (In those days, sailors couldn't just text the cap'n: "OMFG, PIR8S!") He found the piece, which is worth around $7,500, at a Portland antique market.
