Newport's Fashion Aristocrats in WSJ Magazine Were Originally Southern Plantation Owners

Newport's Fashion Aristocrats Redefine American Prep in WSJ Magazine May-June 2026 AOC Fashion

American Prep Story

‘A Fresh Take on American Prep’ fashion story for WSJ Magazine [IG] travels to Rhode Island for the May-June 2026 issue. The location of the fashion shoot is Rosecliff Mansion in Newport.

Newport, Rhode Island transitioned into a fashionable summer resort for America’s monied elite starting in the 1850s. Before New York’s ‘Gilded Age’ class arrived in Newport, it was a haven for Southern Plantation owners. Who knew?

The three classic beauties showcasing American Prep for WSJ’s May-June 2026 issue are Ava Shipp, Constanze Van Rosmalen and Gretchen Easterwood.

Jay Massacret styles the trio in Celine, Chanel, Givenchy, Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Loro Piana, Marc Jacobs, Max Mara, Michael Kors, Prada, Ralph Lauren, Tory Burch, Versace and more for images by Coco Capitán [IG]./ Hair by Tamas Tuzes; makeup by Laura Stiassni

Southerners Summering in Newport

Wealthy families from the American South originally visited Newport to escape coastal malaria and yellow fever. By the 1850s, the area began drawing elite New Yorkers looking to escape Manhattan's summer heat. Increasingly, Northern and Southern attitudes among America’s elite about slavery and the abolition movement became deeply fractured.

William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, called Newport “a stronghold of slavery…[the] Charleston or New Orleans of New England.”

Newport itself had direct financial connections to the slave trade. In fact, it was this north-south connection profiteering in the selling of humans as property that first brought rich Southerners to the hospitable place called Newport.

Irony becomes consequential when we also learn that Newport was home to a small but growing number of wealthy Americans of color, who earned their riches and freedom as whalers.