Alex Carleton

Alex Carleton is an American fashion and home-goods designer. He is the founder of Rogues Gallery and was the creative director of an L.L.Bean capsule brand, L.L.Bean Signature. He is currently creative director of Filson.^[1]

Early life

Carleton grew up on Cape Cod and attended the Cambridge School in Weston, Massachusetts, as well as Sarah Lawrence College.^[2]

Career

After working for a short time in a Boston furniture repair shop, Carleton began his design career in New York at Polo Ralph Lauren where he was a senior designer. He did design and branding for Abercrombie & Fitch. He moved to Maine in 1999.^[3]

Carleton started Rogues Gallery in 2003 as a side project while he was working for L.L.Bean.^[4] Rogues Gallery's T-shirts pioneered the trend toward highly designed graphic T-shirts and were quickly noted in the pages of Men's Vogue and eventually on a number of celebrity clients.^[5][6] The Rogues Gallery store and website have since been closed.

Carleton was nominated for GQ designer of the year in 2009.^[7] That same year he began working on developing the new L.L.Bean Signature line.^[8][9] He subsequently opened a small boutique art and antiques gallery on Cape Cod called Foc'sle.^[10][11] His arrangement with L.L.Bean ended in 2013, and, soon after, he moved to Filson.