Pike/Pine’s Excelsior development was named for the Excelsior Motorcycle and Bicycle Company that at one time called its corner home (Image: Excelsior Apartments)
The Valencia Street shop (Image: Taylor Stitch)
Taylor Stitch is preparing to open its first store outside the Bay Area on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
City permits show plans for the new shop in the massive Excelsior mixed-use development on E Pine just above downtown where it will join a mix of retailers including the likes of Warby Parker, fellow fashion retailer Marine Layer, Aesop skincare, and a Seattle outlet of California’s The Pressed Juicery.
The block of retailers and businesses that call the 300 block of E Pine home in 2020 would likely amaze and confound any Capitol Hill resident of 1999.
The eight story, 203-unit, 180 parking space, preservation incentive boosted (but not landmarks worthy) development was built above the overhauled shells of auto row buildings along E Pine including the former home of the popular Bauhaus cafe. Bauhaus wasn’t the only small business displaced by the development. Retailers including Le Frock, Edie’s, Scout Apparel, Vutique, Wall of Sound and Spine and Crown Books all eventually made way for the construction. New era tenants have included Seattle home decor business Stock and Pantry and euro fashion retailer Scotch and Soda.
Scotch and Soda shuttered with little notice on the Melrose side of the building and Stock and Pantry, the only local small business in the original mix, also closed to make way for a chain waxing salon business. The waxing salon appears to now be making way for the new upscale men’s retailer, according to the permit paperwork.
Taylor Stitch dates to 2007 and has grown its reputation with two shops in San Francisco’s core. The expansion being planned to open in coming weeks is its first in what the company hopes to be a ripple of new stores around the U.S., according to this industry report.
Taylor Stitch co-founder Mike Maher also is on the board of private equity firm The Digital Stronghold as it seeks out “men’s interest brands” to invest in. “We don’t think of ourselves as fashion forward, but as building classic clothes,” Maher said a few years back about Taylor Stitch. “We’re the opposite of fast fashion. We take a really iterative approach.”
A Taylor Stitch dress shirt or flannel will run you around $130 and their jeans clock in around $170.
Taylor Stitch will open at 315 E Pine in March. Learn more at taylorstitch.com.
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I think it’s actually moving into the recently closed juice shop (which was at 315), not the still-operating waxing spot (which is at 317)?
Either way? I bet anything that someone comes with the “Anti business” govt. Wage gripes that “put businesses out of business thus reducing jobs” rant.
Great. Their clothes are pretty good
I expect this will fail more or less immediately, but who knows, maybe we’ve gentrified enough.
I have a couple Taylor Stitch items, they’re solid if a little pricey, because I think they try not to be as bad ethically/ecologically as lots of other clothing brands. I’d welcome the chance to try things on though. Between them, Buck Mason, and Marine Layer I think that stretch has “solid if pricey” covered.