(Image: Freeman)
A Seattle clothing company famous for its Pacific Northwest-tried and tested rain jackets will open its first retail location this summer on Capitol Hill.
While you may be hoping for a dry and sunny August, Freeman plans to open its first store in the 84-year-old Loveless Building on E Roy just off Broadway.
“We really wanted a nice, timeless space,” Freeman’s third and latest employee Alex Frank tells CHS.
(Image: Justin Marx Photography)
Frank joined the clothing company last year with founders Scott and Brittany Freeman. The husband and wife launched their business in 2010 and have grown the company with online sales of jackets, shirts, vests and miscellaneous items of Pacific Northwest style.
A similar array will be found on the store’s shelves when it opens for business in August. In building Freeman, the three meet other similar companies — small and focused on USA-made, local manufacturers.
“The idea that we could fill up a store not just with Freeman stuff but with other stuff from people doing the same thing got us really excited,” Frank said.
Freeman joins UnderU4Men as an island of boutique retail with a masculine edge in the historic old building. The Blink eyelash salon is next door. The space was the previous home to Ada’s Technical Books which moved and expanded on 15th Ave E in 2013. The building has also been home since 1995 to Japanese art and craft retailer Kobo. Last week, new fixed-menu and fine dining venture Restaurant Marron opened in the Loveless.
The buildout in the Arthur L. Loveless-designed structure revealed a few lovely secrets along the way including a beautiful wood floor long-buried beneath grimy tiles.
The Freeman store will feature products from around 20 other manufacturers, Frank said, including items from Capitol Hill ex-pat Crescent Down Works.
The company provides a quaint version of its history on its site:
Freeman started at a kitchen table in a small apartment in the heart of Seattle with the goal of building industry quality goods right here at home. With a focus on fit, function and classic styling we have set out to make that product that everyone has been looking for, but could never quite find. In an age when everything seems to be made somewhere else, Freeman would like to say: Welcome to Seattle
Its $325 rain jackets, flannel shirts, and other menswear items are made in SoDo. Part of the new Loveless shop will be dedicated to a back area where buttons can be sewed and stitches finished. The team of three is also handling the buildout on its own — turns out, Scott Freeman is also a contractor.
Freeman plans to open at the start of August. You can find it in the 800 block of E Roy. Learn more at freemanseattle.com.
And I thought my $100 Columbia jacket was overpriced!
$140 for a flannel shirt. Nice looking gear, but at those prices, its outdoor wear for the 1%.
$180 for a jacket sans sleeves aka a vest : \
If you want quality made products, made in america, by people like you making a livable wage running a small business, these are the prices you’ll be paying. The pieces they make are high quality and if cared for properly will last for years and years. Anything you’re buying at cheap prices, like a sub $100 raincoat, is made overseas, and possibly by someone who is basically an indentured servant working in conditions that are illegal here in the US.
I know this prices some people out, but this is the reality of the economy we live in. Not their fault.
And by some people you mean about 98% of us.
Sooooo, this is basically Filson for people under 40?
Along with the absurd rents, Soho and Chelsea creep into The Hill.
I own one of their jackets and the quality and craftsmanship is impeccable. I would rather support local for double the price. It’s worth it.
The idea is to save up for one high quality jacket that lasts 25 years rather than get the crappy one made by slaves that lasts 2-3 years. And keep our hard earned money local.
[…] June, CHS reported on Freeman’s plans to take over the retail space left empty after Ada’s Technical Books moved to its new home on 15th Ave E. The company […]