A DRESS WITH SUCCESS


Jun 27, 2022

How Nell Diamond’s home goods and clothing company threaded the needle during the pandemic.

story by Robert Cocuzzo

photography by Emma Craft

The pandemic produced many winners and losers in the consumer market. While companies like Peloton and Zoom soared, airlines and movie theaters clung on for their very existence. In the fashion industry, the trajectory was decidedly downward. With people resorting to wearing sweatpants and T-shirts while working for home, fashion sales cratered by 79 percent. One company to defy this trend was Hill House Home, a home goods turned fashion brand that proved tailor-made for the moment. The success is a credit to its founder, lifelong summer resident Nell Diamond, who is continuing her company’s growth this summer by opening a location on Main Street.


The genesis of Hill House Home was circuitous. Fresh out of Princeton, Nell Diamond followed her father’s footsteps into finance. Bob Diamond was the CEO of Barclays, but Nell set out to make it on her own. After passing the required regulatory exams, she landed on a trading desk where, along with developing her quantitative skills, she watched brands grow and proliferate in the market. Nell gradually realized that she didn’t feel the same pull her father had for the financial sector and regularly caught herself daydreaming about creating her own brand like the ones she tracked in the market. After three years, she abandoned the trading desk, enrolled in Yale School of Management and began developing Hill House Home, which would later grab headlines for selling $1 million in dresses in just twelve minutes. Today, Hill House Home is one of the hottest direct-to-consumer brands in the country

Growing up between London and Tokyo where her father was stationed for work, Nell always considered Nantucket her home in the United States. Her grandfather moved his family of eleven permanently to the island after Bob Diamond went off to college, and became the principal at Nantucket High School. The Diamonds sewed deep roots on Nantucket, including with restaurants like A.K. Diamonds and Arno’s, both of which were owned and operated by Nell’s uncles. “It’s incredibly emotional,” Nell said of opening her retail location right beside the former space of her uncle’s restaurant on Main Street. “My brother’s first job was as a busboy at Arno’s. My grandfather’s buried on the island. And I have so many aunts and cousins there. Nantucket is home for me.” Indeed, Nell named her company Hill House Home after her parents’ home on the island.

Opening a location on Nantucket marks a high point of the upward trajectory Hill House Home has been on since its launch in 2016. It’s been an unlikely journey. Nell had no formal background in home goods or fashion when she started hatching a business plan for a female-focused, English garden-inspired home goods company that would specialize in bedding. “I always joke that I’m kind of an accidental entrepreneur,” Nell said. “Because I am very risk averse, and being an entrepreneur is inherently risky, but I couldn’t get this idea of creating a brand for this next generation out of my mind.”


As fate would have it, the week after Nell launched Hill House Home, she learned that she was pregnant with her first child. “I was twenty-seven years old, which in New York, is like being a teen mom,” Nell laughed. The unexpected pregnancy with her husband—a private equity investor named Teddy Wasserman—had unexpected benefits for the growth of her brand. Sharing her journey on social media of launching a business while starting a family as a young female entrepreneur, Nell attracted a like-minded fanbase of tens of thousands of followers. She became synonymous with her brand and the engine driving Hill House Home’s marketing. As her bedding and other home goods began gaining traction, Nell started plotting a pivot into the clothing sector.

“I’ve always been a dress girl,” Nell said. “I wanted a dress that I could do everything in. A dress that I could wake up at 6:30 with the kids, get them off to school, then head to the office and have a Zoom with investors, and then go meet my friends for drinks with a change of shoes and jewelry.” Enter the Nap Dress, an all-purpose garment comfortable enough to sleep in but stylish enough to wear for every occasion. As Hill House Home’s first foray into the fashion space, Nell and her team were unsure how their customers would respond. Within fifteen minutes of launching online in 2021, $1 million worth of Nap dresses were purchased. Two hours later, the entire inventory was gone. Nell has since trademarked the Nap Dress and turned it into the cornerstone of Hill House Home’s offering, with a vast array of different styles that are almost impossible to keep in stock. Other major fashion labels have since tried to make their own versions, but Nell’s Nap Dress continues to reign supreme.

Hill House Home was soaring when the pandemic hit. Like all business owners, Nell had no idea what a potential shutdown would mean for her fledgling company. Making matters all the more precarious was the fact that she had just given birth to twins. While the pandemic prompted a nearly 80 percent drop in clothing sales, Hill House Home seemed custom-made for the pandemic. “We ended up having a tremendous amount of growth during COVID,” Nell said. The Nap Dress became, as Fast Company dubbed it, the “pandemic uniform” for tens of thousands of women. Unlike companies like Peloton, which has experienced a stark post-pandemic downturn, Hill House Home only continues to thrive. Nell has become the darling of the fashion industry, written up in everything from Vogue to The New York Times. Yet opening her space on Nantucket might just be the greatest sign of her success, at least in her family’s eyes.


“We have some exclusive styles coming to Nantucket,” Nell said excitedly of her space on 33 Main Street. “We have a few dresses that you will only be able to get on Nantucket— we made these amazing sewn in labels that say Nantucket 2022 and are in the shape of a quarter board.” Much like her home on Nantucket, Nell views Hill House Home as an indelible part of her identity, a company she never envisions selling. “I’m definitely one of those idealistic entrepreneurs,” she said.“This is my heart and soul. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I definitely want to be doing this forever.”

Latest Stories


By Antonia DePace 21 Nov, 2023
Islander Vivian Crosby wins Best New Filmmaker at the 2023 Nantucket Shorts Festival.
By Nantucket Magazine 21 Nov, 2023
Brittany Mayer and Peter Talieri tied the knot on Nantucket.
By Nantucket Magazine 21 Nov, 2023
Nantucket Shorts Festival
By Nantucket Magazine 21 Nov, 2023
The Scallopers Ball
By Nantucket Magazine 21 Nov, 2023
Late this summer, the 2023 Trashion Show took place at Cisco Brewery and was hosted by Holly Finigan and Rick Gifford. The annual event, which highlights fashion designs made of salvaged and recycled materials, celebrated its sixth year. Local and celebrity models strutted the runway to music by DJ Lay Z Boy in outfits themed around various materials like chip bags, ferry tickets, vape pens, hotel towels, mini alcohol bottles and more.
By Nantucket Magazine 21 Nov, 2023
Ticket holders for this year’s tnpONE, held October 5-8, gathered at the White Elephant. Kicking off the first day was a conversation with former First Lady Michelle Obama, who was interviewed by Neil Phillips. Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Graham Lynn chatted on stage earlier that day as well. With a schedule jam-packed with innovative films, fun music and inspirational panels, guests were given a well-rounded experience that tackled topics like race in America, the nation’s narrative, democracy, pluralism and philanthropy, and more to help bring political conversations together through bipartisanship with a hope of starting to mend the great divide that the world is experiencing now.
MORE STORIES
Share by: