UPDATE: Design 10301 is now called Jarbo.

On a recent sunny day, a chic, sterling-haired woman in motorcycle boots and a cropped sweater wandered into Design 10301 in Madison Park (2809 E Madison St, Madison Park, 206-388-2420; design10301.com), fingered some supple stretch-leather leggings and a long-in-front, short-in-back cardigan, and made a nearly breathless comparison to a bygone Belltown boutique where fans of Yohji Yamamoto and Norma Kamali found poppy, avant-garde silhouettes in the ’80s. It was like she had finally come home again.

It wasn’t clear whether two equally stylish shoppers—one just barely salt-and-peppered, the other nowhere near it—got the reference, but the multigenerational trio traded opinions on jersey sheath dresses just the same.

Design 10301’s owner, Mercer Island mom and 37-year fashion industry veteran Sharon Roth, creates Jarbo, the in-house line of draped separates and loosely tailored knits that appeal to style watchers who recognize the allusion to European and Japanese fashion and women who simply see hand-knit, boxy, studded sweaters and know they want them on their bodies.

Just don’t call her a local designer. The term conjures a sort of Project Runway newbie, and Roth’s fitted-here, oversize-there pieces in wool, leather, and actual Pima (as in, grown
in Peru) cotton have amassed a following at niche, luxury stores such as Ikram and Fred Segal.

And considering Roth just opened a brand new store in Los Angeles’s swank Brentwood neighborhood and has plans for more airy, industrial retail posts, we’ll soon have to share her with the rest of the world.