Mediums Collective celebrates first year of streetwear fashion and culture on Capitol Hill

Streetwear and events shop Mediums Collective is celebrating its first year of business on Capitol Hill Friday night with fashion and a Dia de los Muertos party.

CHS reported here on the new venture from brothers Roger and Cesar Maldonado who have blended Latino culture, streetwear fashion, and E Pike loyalty into a new business helping to shift Pike/Pine retail.

Friday’s party will be representative of what Mediums is all about with plans for DJ dancing and fashion runway action in the middle of E Pike’s street scene.

It should also help keep the block active with a lull in the action next door as Mediums neighbor HoneyHole has gone unexpectedly quiet.

 

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For Mediums Collective, E Pike is the ‘street’ in its streetwear fashion and events

(Image: Mediums Collective)

(Image: Mediums Collective)

There is a new style and new energy joining the mix of small independent retailers growing on Capitol Hill’s E Pike.

“It’s very vibrant,” Roger Maldonado tells CHS. “Us moving there, we’re making it even more vibrant. We’re open late, play music… it feels more like a safe environment when people are out.”

Brothers Roger and Cesar Maldonado have opened a permanent home for their streetwear and events brand Mediums Collective in the midst of the mix of E Pike small businesses including some longtime neighborhood classics like Doghouse Leathers, Babeland, and the Stitches fabric shop. Newbies like mushroom fashion (yes, mushroom fashion) provider Sporelust! are now adding another layer of good times and shopping to the street.

Roger Maldonado tells CHS Capitol Hill was a natural home for the first store for Mediums after the brand has grown through pop-ups and street markets with many of the events taking place around the Hill. The neighborhood’s fashions also are a natural fit. Continue reading

TaraShakti building new ski fashion brand and community with Shakti Shack pop-up on the slopes of Capitol Hill

(Image: TaraShakti)

Clark and Ralkowski (Image: TaraShakti)

Another sports fashion brand with mountain-high aspirations from a neighborhood entrepreneur is starting with a pop-up on the slopes of Capitol Hill.

TaraShakti, launched last year by Capitol Hill resident Tara Clark, has set out to make a new space in ski fashion with a revival of the onesie, a look Clark says helps her skiers “build confidence, connection, and community.”

The new ski brand from Clark and co-founder Quan Ralkowski is making its first tracks this winter with a Shakti Shack pop-up in a former dry cleaners shop on 14th Ave neighboring Porchlight Coffee, and the NUE and Omega Ouzeri restaurants.

“Slip into a vintage inspired, high performance, expertly crafted suit and experience the magic. The feminine fit will hug you in all the right places,” TaraShakti promises. Continue reading

‘Come Get Shots Here’ — Tips from a Capitol Hill street fashion photographer

Earlier today, CHS visited with Lady Krishna, a Capitol Hill character who brightens the streets of Pike and Pine with her love, art, fashion, and music. You can thank another neighborhood character for the images of the Lady in motion.

Orlin Nedkov works at a hospital on First Hill in a job that requires him to stay in close proximity. His time on call, therefore, is spent mostly on Capitol Hill — with a camera in hand.

Nedkov’s hobby currently takes shape in @caphillstreetfashion2022, an Instagram account chronicling Capitol Hill street fashion looks.

“I have 3,000 pictures of people,” Nedkov said. “I don’t know what it is going to morph into.” Continue reading

Capitol Hill’s Lady Krishna — love, meditation, and new music

Natasha Shulman, better known as Lady Krishna, tells CHS she is working on a new album. Those unfamiliar with Lady Krishna need look no farther than her website, which showcases her multimedia art and performances.

Lady Krishna has lived in the neighborhood consistently since the late 90s after nearly two decades spent in New York City, among other spots. Ever since, she has enriched the Hill with her paintings, albums, and meditations, though not without recent challenges due to her health as well as the coronavirus.

“I feel a part of the community so much in Seattle, I’m happy I’m here and I’m getting such good care here,” said Lady Krishna.

She recently finished mixing and mastering her latest song, with the working title I’m a butterfly, I came to be free, as part of an upcoming album.

Three months ago, Lady Krishna was diagnosed with colon cancer. Continue reading

Buck Mason brings LA ‘American classic’ fashion to Seattle with new shop on Capitol Hill

(Image: Buck Mason)

While there remain plenty of papered over and boarded up shop windows from the depths of the pandemic slowdown, the draw of Capitol Hill’s younger and increasingly wealthy demographics and its proximity to the city’s downtown core continues to be strong enough to attract new ventures and nationwide brands.

On E Pine, a pandemic-emptied retail spot has reopened on the E Pine block of the massive Excelsior Apartments development where “American classic” fashion purveyor Buck Mason is now resident: Continue reading

Australia’s Frankie4 Shoes plans Pike/Pine ‘concept store’ — UPDATE: U.S. headquarters

A Frankie4 shop Down Under (Image: Frankie4 Shoes)

Global brands big and small continue to dabble in retail experiments and new concepts in Pike/Pine. The latest will be rapidly growing Frankie4 Shoes as the Australian fashion footwear designer plans to open its first U.S. “concept store” later this year on E Pine.

Permits for the shop show it taking the corner space at 501 E Pine with a classic Capitol Hill recent retail history — ventures including the shuttered anarchist co-op Black Coffee and a shop for the PUBLIC Bikes startup that closed after just under two years of business.

The new store will neighbor the Raygun Lounge. CHS checked in with the game shop and arcade as the popular hangout struggled through COVID-19 restrictions. It has now fully reopened.

UPDATE: Business Operations Manager for Frankie4’s Madeline Losee tells CHS the Capitol Hill location will also be home the company’s U.S. headquarters with office space and a customer support call center. The company’s Australian leadership chose Seattle, Losee said, due to the “innovative nature of the city” and it “marriage of culture and style” based around a growing number of outdoor and adventure brands.

“It’s a perfect fit,” Losee said.

The headquarters and store will bring new activity to the building and some new jobs to the neighborhood — Losee says they are hiring for retail and call center positions.

The store will debut in September with a soft opening and “private fittings” for customers in the new space designed as “a beautiful showcase with natural wood and plants,” Losee says,” and a focus on “a personalized experience for these customers” and “everything they need for better foot health.”

Frankie4 Shoes has grown from its Australian roots with a focus on footwear fashion grounded in “Podiatrist-designed support.” Continue reading

After a year of sweatpants and facemasks, Standard Goods making new Capitol Hill home only a block and a half away

Standard Goods is moving to 501 East Pike, the former location of Bassline Fitness in the Dunn Motor Building. Sign designed by Scott Moffatt. (Image: Standard Goods)

Don’t be surprised if you see the Standard Goods team shuffling inventory from their 701 E Pike location to their new digs in the Dunn Motors Building, especially this week — it’s crunch time. Standard Goods’ lease is up at the end of April, and the retailer is busy moving into a new home at 501 E Pike, the former home of Baseline Fitness. The plan is to close the last two days of the month and officially open the new location on May 1st. Luckily, they’re only moving a block and a half down the street.

“[The old shop is] such a small space and we have been filling it with so much product that it’s a really tight space to walk in,” said Maxx Kautz, Standard Goods’ Capitol Hill Manager. “When we found this space that was kind of twice the size, and we knew our lease was coming up, it was like, ‘We might as well.’”

Standard Goods features apparel, candles, pins, stickers, patches, rain gear, health and beauty products, and much more, many from local Pacific Northwest makers. Owner Jeffrey Gardner launched the shop in 2015 at the location that previously housed occult bookstore Edge of the Circle for over 20 years. When Gardner heard about the availability of the Baseline Fitness space through Jill Cronauer, a frequent customer—as well as Chief Operating Officer and designated broker for Hunters Capital—the idea of moving into a location about twice the size was too good to pass up. Continue reading

Checking in: 20 years of Pretty Parlor on Capitol Hill

(Image: CHS)

Banana and crew (Image: CHS)

By Gabrielle Locke

While we’re thinking about Capitol Hill fashion and beauty that may end up being nothing more than plans due to the COVID-19 crisis, one neighborhood center of fashion, beauty, and more is doing everything it can to hang on through the pandemic and celebrate its 20th anniversary in style.

When COVID-19 first hit, Pretty Parlor owner Anna Banana turned to doorstep delivery to local customers, focused on her Etsy shop, and created an e-commerce store attached to her website — graceful but major shifts for a business that has been in motion since the turn of the millenium.

“In the beginning, I would do doorstep delivery and sometimes, if I knew the customer well, I’d pick them up a Dicks burger and friends, because why not!” Banana says of the early pandemic delivery effort. Continue reading

Sum by Sum Style bringing out of the box picks to growing Pike/Pine fashion scene

(Image: Sum Style)

By Audrey Frigon, CHS Fall Intern

Capitol Hill personal styling services and clothing store Sum is coming to E Pike.

The Sum Styled Box is a more personalized take on the growing delivered style box trend. Kim’s client base, urban working professionals, are very busy people. Because of this it is the goal of Sum Style to serve them in the best way possible and bring a bit of ease to their lives said Sam.

“Our boxes are unique in that our clothes are never mass produced. We are very personal. We don’t style by algorithm, we treat each client like a family member because they are each different and deserve that care.” Continue reading