When Alice Nichols launched her pet apparel company, Up Country, she knew her creatively designed collars would sell. More than 40 years later, that instinct has proven true. But it took a while for others in the manufacturing sector to catch on.
“I thought everybody would embrace this idea, that it was so brilliant,” said Nichols, who started the business out of her basement in 1984. “I had a rude awakening [with] the initial reaction at my first trade show.”
There, Nichols recalls that there was perhaps one other woman business owner in the room. Otherwise, her peers and all the buyers were men, and they regarded Nichols’ fashionable dog collars like a sore thumb amid hardware and components.
Attendees “would walk by the booth and look at my product and say, ‘That’s so silly,’ ” Nichols said.
She even encountered doubt among early supporters. One of Nichols’ friends, an advertising agent, suggested the name “Up Country” as “a nice generic name” that she could reuse when the original business concept failed.
At the time, the pet industry valued utilitarianism over style, Nichols recalled.
“I was always putting something ridiculous on my dog,” Nichols said, “and I thought there are other people like me who would like to put something cute on their dogs.”
Retailers saw Nichols’ vision. G. Fox & Co., the former Hartford, Conn.-based department store chain, became her first major customer.
And on a broader scale, the skepticism that Nichols encountered has given way to a global pet industry valued at $320 billion as of 2023, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. By 2030, the market research service estimates that this figure will soar to nearly $500 billion.
Up Country has grown with the times. Nichols, who initially didn’t expect business operations would extend beyond her basement, moved into the former Rumford Baking Powder building in the early 1990s and built up her team. About 15 years ago, the company moved to its current headquarters at 76 Boyd Ave. in East Providence.
The company has grown from a one-woman operation to a 31-employee team based in East Providence, with collars printed in Cranston, producing thousands of collar designs alongside harnesses, jackets, bandanas, treats and cat products.
