Tag Archives: fashion

Checking in: 20 years of Pretty Parlor on Capitol Hill

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(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

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(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 →

Visette Boutique new home like a luxury closet hidden in the middle of Pike/Pine’s growing fashion retail scene

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(Image: Visette)

Four years after its opening, Capitol Hill dress design shop Visette Boutique will be moving up the Hill.

Capitalizing on an expiring lease, owner Visal Sam took the opportunity to move locations and, in turn, expand her store.

“It was a perfect storm for us,” she said. “The situation provided us with an option to go with it and benefit from it.”

Sam, whose boutique primarily focuses on special occasion dresses, aims to push women out of their “fashion box.” She feels that everyone has their own style and it is very difficult for industrialized and mass-produced clothes to truly fit someone’s look.

“If you want something really beautiful you don’t know where to go because everywhere else is generic” she said. Continue reading →

It’s a Black Friday, indeed, at E Pike’s new Ritual

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With Thanksgiving out of the way, it’s time to Shop the Hill. E Pike’s newest retailer is ready for your business. Meanwhile, two other Hill fashion shops are marking the start of the holiday shopping season celebrating important milestones.

Ritual, a new independent fashion shop from two industry veterans, is now open on the Comet block and ready for your very Black Friday visit.

“When we’re feeling feel sassy, we might have some charcoal,” Sarah Randall Williams tells CHS about Ritual’s monochromatic approach with an emphasis on texture and shape.

“I worship at the altar of Yohji Yamamoto.” Continue reading →

New indie fashion retailer Ritual plans to bring an edge — and conscience — to Pike/Pine

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Two industry veterans are coming together to create a new fashion shopping experience on E Pike they hope moves beyond faceless, soulless big box retailers.

“We both became a little more disillusioned with faceless, fast profit, fashion companies,” William Rheinhardt tells CHS about Ritual, the new store he and business partner Sarah Randall Williams are creating in the 900 block of E Pike in the middle of the neighborhood’s nightlife and club scene.

After meeting in the trenches working on West Coast efforts for Swedish retailer H&M, Rheinhardt says he and Williams are breaking out after a combined 40 years in the industry to create their own fashion shop featuring clothing as well as household and lifestyle goods.

“We’ve been looking to partner with brands that have a social conscience,” Rheinhardt said. “We see that as the greatest need in fashion.” Continue reading →

Anne and Valentin bringing French luxury eyewear to Pike/Pine

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Inside Anne and Valentin’s Nolita U.S. flagship (Image: Anne and Valentin)

Young but aging tech workers and luxury are, apparently, booming Pike/Pine retail markets. French luxury eyewear concern Anne and Valentin — or Anne et Valentin, if you prefer — is sizing up a space in the neighborhood’s Odd Fellows building.

CHS has confirmed the project with the Toulouse-founded global fashion brand with plans for Pike/Pine to join the exclusive ranks of locations with A&V shops — the southern French capital, Paris, and three New York City locations: Madison, the Upper West Side, and the Nolita flagship.

Marc Oliver, who will manage the Capitol Hill store for the company, tells CHS the Seattle expansion is part of Anne and Valentin “dipping a toe” into creating more stores “out west.” Continue reading →

Sole Mates brings sneakerhead paradise to Capitol Hill

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Seattle’s sneakerheads will have a new foothold on Capitol Hill when Sole Mates, a sneaker consignment store above the Broadway and Pike QFC, opens shop at the end of the month. Owner Parris Johnson said culture is “in demand” on Capitol Hill, and that preparations are basically done and the store should be open by August 31st.

“I felt like this is what the area needs,” Johnson said. “A real true boutique. Brick and mortar.”

Johnson, who grew up in Seattle, jumped at the opportunity to open a business less than a quarter mile from where he grew up on 20th and Union. Continue reading →

The Shopaholic’s Closet brings high-end consignment to E Pike

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With her new boutique The Shopaholic’s Closet at 1205 E Pike, Audrey Clark hopes to introduce a pop of color to the local femme fashion palette. “I learned a long time ago that greys, blacks, and browns are the basis for Seattle,” she says, “I try to ease ‘em in a little bit—it’s spring!”

Clark’s new store specializes in fashion-forward and high-end apparel on consignment. She’s worked in the fashion industry for years in various capacities from wholesale rep to buyer, and she keeps close tabs on the industry, regularly shopping sample sales in New York and LA with an eye to what will fly in Seattle with our drab regional inclinations. Continue reading →

No need to say sorry as fashion boutique Mishu prepares to exit Broadway

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Michelle Conley is at peace with the end of her storefront after seven years on Broadway. She would like the neighborhood and her customers to be at peace with the end, too.

“It’s not just one reason. It’s all the factors that Seattle is going through,” she told CHS Tuesday morning about the coming closure of the Mishu Boutique, one of the rare independent retail shops still operating on Broadway.

Mishu will shutter its Broadway doors for good by the end of February. In the meantime, everything must go. Continue reading →

Ollie Quinn bringing Canadian eyewear fashion to the Pike/Pine ‘neighbourhood’

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Coming soon: Ollie Quinn (Image: CHS)

Some 60,000 eyeballs — 30,000 attendees with approximately two eyeballs per person — will roll through E Pike for the 2017 Capitol Hill Block Party this July. There will be a bit of side-eye — and plenty of near and farsightedness.

Ollie Quinn, the Canadian-born provider of eyewear fashion, will join the increasingly crowded field of shops hoping to serve those many, many eyes with its new Capitol Hill boutique planned to open by the end of this month in a long-empty retail space with a clear view of the Block Party’s main stage at Pike and Broadway.

“We want it to be a space that people feel drawn to and are comfortable lingering in, which is why we have a community working space built within where community members can come to study, create or chat,” a company spokesperson tells CHS. Continue reading →