Best of the City 2009

The Global Edition

Edited by Jessica VoelkerWith contribution from Eric Scigliano, Kathryn Robinson, Karen Quinn, Matthew Halverson, Alex Girma, James Ross Gardner, Kelley Frodel, Laura Cassidy, and Steve Wiecking

Euro-Style Office Supplies

Anyone who has ever toiled in a continental office will tell you: it’s all about the details. Annual reports are presented in portfolio books from Parisian brand Prat, expenses are logged inside Moleskine notebooks secured with elastic straps, and employees spin around on Rexite swivel chairs whose globular red wheels recall Alexander Calder mobiles. To bring that smart sensibility stateside, Matt Crossin opened PAPERHAUS, a downtown shop where Seattleites find slick supplies that set them far apart from the Kinko’s crowd. Paperhaus, 2008 First Ave, Downtown, 206-374-8566; www.paperhaus.com

Record Dealers to the World

Next time you see the Os Mutantes LP that introduced you to Brazilian Tropicália back in college, check the fine print: Chances are good it came to your record store by way of LIGHT IN THE ATTIC’s headquarters on Aurora Avenue. As teenagers in grunge-era Seattle, Josh Wright and Matt Sullivan broadcast their favorite songs on FM radio. Now in their 30s, they import otherwise unreachable international records and send them out to shops all over America. Light in the Attic, 206-706-6715; www.lightintheattic.net

Global Chic Menswear

The look is American—by way of the world. Drawing on nearly 20 years’ experience as a hunter-gatherer of fine yet laid-back menswear—and an obsession with timeless styles, JACK STRAW co-owner John Richards slips down alleyways in Paris, Milan, and Antwerp to find washed (read: fashionably rumpled) cotton and hemp blazers in sandy lavender, fine gingham shirts to throw on beneath them, and slim-fitting, ankle-length pants. Good news for Seattle’s all-American-yet-global girls: Richards will make space for a small women’s collection next spring. Jack Straw, 1117 First Ave, Downtown, 206-462-6236

Global Chic Womenswear

Patricia Wolfkill learned grace, elegance, and the power of a beautifully fitting blouse from her first-generation Italian American mother. The rest she figured out on West Coast runways in the ’80s, at DKNY in the ’90s, and in the LA offices of Tunisian-born designer Max Azria. When a family move brought her to Seattle, Wolfkill created merge, sensing a need for edgy, innovative expressions for women in their 30s and beyond. Today her inventory—laser-cut jersey dresses from Brazilian label Osklen, extra-long leggings by Italy’s Twin Set—guides savvy shoppers toward the European edge. Merge, 611 N 35th St, Fremont, 206-782-5335; www.mergeboutique.com

International Web Wears

Last year Jill Wenger took a peep at Google analytics and was surprised to learn that Aussies and Europeans were logging onto the blog she’d made for her Fremont shop, Impulse. Inspired, she rebranded and expanded, launching TOTOKAELO.COM and its brick-and-mortar equivalent on Western Ave. Shoppers from Belgium, New Zealand, and Ballard join the site to share styling ideas and trend obsessions, and then peruse far-flung fashions from Yohji Yamamoto, Isabel Murant, and A.P.C. Totokaelo, 913 Western Ave, Downtown, 206-623-3582; www.totokaelo.com

Polish Pottery Place

POLISH POTTERY part owner Margaret Rzymowska left the north of Poland with her parents when she was nine years old. Five years ago, she and her mother opened their small shop on the lower level of the Pike Place Market and began selling their homeland’s prettily patterned and sturdy stoneware. They also stock hand-sewn tablecloths and gorgeous European hand baskets that are exactly the thing for gathering up your market bounty. Polish Pottery Place, 1501 Pike Pl, Ste 505, Pike Place Market, 206-903-1285; www.polishpotteryseattle.com

Swedish Furnishings

“We Swedes always yearn for the light.” That’s Marie-Christine “Kiki” Alvord explaining the boldly hued housewares—fiery red goblets, cabinets the color of robin eggs—in her Madison Valley shop, SWEDISH HEIRLOOMS. Having spent the first half of her life suffering through long winters in Stockholm—“It’s like living in a wet wool sock”—Alvord knew just what sun-deprived Seattleites needed: Brightly colored decorative items that serve as salves against seasonal affective disorder. She also has tea sets from Rörstrand (opened in 1726), a 69-piece glassware set that includes half schnapps glasses (“for the ladies”), and signed birch wood Rococo chairs handmade in 1849. Swedish Heirlooms, 2911 E Madison St, Madison Valley, 206-621-1002; www.swedishheirlooms.com

East/West Rugs

In 2004 Rachel Meginnes traveled to Nepal, where she befriended a group of Nepali rug experts. Together they would launch DORJÉ CONTEMPORARY one year later. The Nepalis oversee the families of artisan weavers and dyers who manufacture the carpets in Sikkim and Kathmandu while, from a studio on Capitol Hill, Meginnes creates the designs and manages wholesale relationships. But while the rugs are made in the East, Meginnes’s artistic approach (think jewel and earth tones balanced by painterly sweeps and organic shapes) is distinctly Western., 206-783-7847; www.dorjecontemporary.com

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Published: July 2009