Molly Shaheen, daughter of U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and her husband Huw Collins, an actor with Hollywood credits, are building a luxury clothing and lifestyle brand aimed at travelers—and are doing so from her hometown of Dover.
Inspired by their love of traveling and the fashion houses of Paris, the couple launched WHEAT in 2017. They worked with upscale hotels including Four Seasons Anguilla, Four Seasons Lanai, and Faraway Hotel in Martha’s Vineyards to create retail experiences for their guests.
“We looked at hotels and travel destinations with beautiful hotels and amazing amenities but no or little retail. We saw that as a great opportunity. We wanted to offer them this new amenity of luxury shopping,” Shaheen says.
The couple curates a selection of clothing, candles, and fragrance lines for each site based on the demographics of travelers attracted to those hotels. They have also developed their own line of chic, upscale loungewear for women and men—The WHEAT Collection—which is made in Los Angeles.
In fall 2023, the couple opened their first stand-alone store adjacent to the Cocheco Mill in Dover. The Shop by WHEAT also houses the company’s corporate headquarters. “We want to be part of this rejuvenation of Dover,” Collins says.
He says building strong relationships with each of their hotel clients has been critical to WHEAT’s growth. “Subsequently, we have 15 retail locations and two coffee shops that range from Hawaii, the West Coast and East Coast of America, and the Caribbean,” Collins says.
When all its stores are operating (as some locations are seasonal), WHEAT has between 75 and 100 employees. “We have more than doubled revenue every year since beginning in 2017,” Shaheen says. Collins, originally from London, adds they would like to expand the brand to Europe.