You’ll find wares that mix motifs of the ‘60s and ‘70s with modern ideas and culture. Display tables are filled with Ash + Chess products like a bumper sticker that reads “Keep honking! My dog is driving” and multi-colored tees supporting trans rights. They also carry an array of unique home goods and gifts from other makers, from checkered candle holders to neon puzzles to googly-eyed money purses. “I’ve always loved rainbows and colorful things. I was a huge Lisa Frank fan as a child,” says Molesso.
The Ash + Chess founders first met on a dating app in 2015. “I studied textile design in college and was working for a wallpaper company, and Chess was a high school special education teacher,” says Molesso. “We had only been together for a year when I convinced him to come to a stationery trade show and start a company of our own.” Two years later, they debuted their first line of greeting cards at the National Stationery Show in New York City and launched an online and wholesale shop—which grew exponentially as they moved from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia, to just north of Kingston in 2022. Today, over 700 stores around the globe carry their bold-colored art products, including local shops like Cocoon (New Paltz), Poor George (Cold Spring), and Main Street Beat (Nyack).
The Uptown shop will serve to spread Molesso and Needham’s most important mission: uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community. Their goal is for Everywhere Shop to serve as a safe space for both queer locals and visitors. “We named our store Everywhere Shop because queer and trans people are everywhere,” says the couple. They’ve also partnered with brands—such as Target, Skittles, Smartfood popcorn, and Erin Condren planners—to create pride collections and have written several books, including The Gay Agenda: A Modern Queer History & Handbook and Queer Tarot: An Inclusive Deck & Guidebook. In the future, look out for small events and art workshops for community members of all ages. “Even though it’s a store, I hope that it grows and becomes a cute space that people feel like they can hang out in,” adds Molesso.
Until then, you can stop by the shop Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Keep an eye out for Ash + Chess’s new children’s book Just Like My Family, hitting shelves this May.
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