As much a harbinger of warm weather as cheery daffodils or traffic at the triangle, a certain colorful breed of men’s trousers pops up on the streets of Edgartown around Memorial Day weekend each year. From the porch of the Edgartown Yacht Club to the line at Mad Martha’s, grown men in pink pants are a common sight, and the preppy trend extends beyond the borders of our fair Island. Though most frequently associated with the leafy quads of New England prep schools, these dusky-red duds are a beloved, casual staple for the preppy set nationwide. And to think, it all started on that other island just twelve miles to our east, where the forebears of these salmon-hued slacks were born.
In 1945, Phil Murray opened Murray’s Toggery Shop on Main Street in Nantucket, and was inspired to introduce his own style of casual men’s trousers. Murray modeled his design on the classically red, easy-fitting pant worn by sailors in the Brittany region of France. The original pants were made of sailcloth and loose fitting, to allow for quick movements around the ship. Murray correctly surmised that a similar cut and canvas cloth would be popular among his customers, many of whom spent a great deal of time on the water themselves.
The pants were an instant hit, so much so that Murray’s began shipping orders wholesale to stores elsewhere, including a handful of establishments on Martha’s Vineyard. “On the Vineyard, they started calling them ‘Edgartown Reds,’” Trish Murray-Bridier, Phil’s granddaughter and co-owner of today’s Murray’s Toggery Shop, remembers, “probably because people who sailed mostly lived in that area.” When her father, also named Phil, took over the family business in the late 1950s, he trademarked the name “Nantucket Reds,” and arranged for the pants to be made exclusively for the shop, as they remain today.
In the beginning, the pants were a deep, rustic red, but when the younger Phil began hearing back from satisfied customers that the fabric was fading over time to a pleasing almost-pink, he made a savvy, hometown connection. According to Murray-Bridier, the name “Nantucket Red” was assigned in homage to the weathered shingles that wove across the many pitched roofs of that salt-sprayed island (and this one, too – but we can all agree that “Nantucket-and-Martha’s-Vineyard Reds” doesn’t have quite the same ring.) A tagline on the Murray’s website reads: “Nantucket Red – Guaranteed to Fade.” And, while no extra washings are required, Murray-Bridier admits that she has heard stories of customers dunking their new, too-red garments into seawater to speed up the process.
Nantucket Reds found an official Vineyard home in 1978, when Murray-Bridier and her husband opened a Vineyard Haven branch, where they commuted weekly from Nantucket for twenty-five years. Following another six-year stint in the old Fligors building in Edgartown, the Murray-Bridiers motored back to their home island for good in 2008 to focus on a burgeoning online business and their famous flagship shop.
Though the Vineyard no longer has its own Murray’s, and sales of the trademarked Reds are limited to the Nantucket shop and online, you’d be hard-pressed to find an Island boutique not selling some version of the ubiquitous pink pant. Vineyard Vines sells the ones shown above, and even not-so-preppy Basics in Oak Bluffs is prepared for an onslaught of seasonal requests. Love ’em or hate ’em, and call ’em whatever color you like: pink pants are the stuff of Island legend. (That other island, of course.)
