Gather Consignment, Seattle: fashion/style consulting

Sometimes I skip out on my life for a day and go to Seattle to hunt down consignment shops to review. I call this “working.”  All that is required to do this job is some Google research to find the shops, a bit of Map-questing activity and a full tank of gas.  I find the shops, meet the owners if possible, take some pictures if they will let me and write a review.  This is a great one.

(Gather) Consignment; Women’s Clothing and Home Décor

4863 Rainier Ave., S

Seattle, WA 98118

206-760-0674

Retro-chic signage

Most of you don’t live in Seattle and perhaps are wondering why you should care about a consignment shop review that is not about a store in your vicinity.

Here is a handy list of reasons:

#1.  You might actually GO to the place where this shop is and have an opportunity to stop in.  Otherwise you will find yourself at the dumb, stupid mall and never know this cool place exists.

#2.  You might need an excuse for a day trip with a girlfriend.

#3.  You might want to encourage “green” shopping and go out of your way to support those folks making it possible.

#4.  You can learn the criteria of a really good consignment shop, look around your hometown and see if anyone is doing it properly.  If they aren’t, maybe you should.

#5  What is more fun than treasure hunting?

If you are convinced, read on…

Gather has been on my list of shops to review for a while and last week I finally got there.  The drive went through a part of Seattle that I had never seen before, really having no idea where I was or where I was going.  Upon arrival, the street was cute, so was the sign and the window displays made me salivate.  So far, so good.  Several items caught my eye immediately upon entering:  gorgeous coat, spankin’ hot boots and a jewelry case.  I was trying on coats right over my clothes within 10 seconds.

Great stuff right by the door

The shop is fairly small but extremely organized with plenty of room to move around.  The rounders have the standard separation by type of garment (rack for shirts, rack for skirts, pants on the wall, etc.)  Rifling through the racks I found a complete absence of crap.  EVERYTHING was well selected, clean and clearly separated by size (XS-XL, no plus sizes).  This shop had the best selection of any shop in Seattle that I have seen.  There was plenty of I.N.C.- higher end department store stuff, designer items and high quality garments with unfamiliar names.  That unusual, well-crafted, slightly different designer-y stuff that you get at boutiques is my favorite kind of thing and they had lots of it.  Who cares about Gap t-shirts?  Just go to the outlet.

Irresistible displays

Ok, so lots of great stuff including shoes, boots, handbags, and hats, all displayed in interesting ways.  Not bargain basement prices but certainly reasonable, especially for the quality and the fact that it’s in Seattle.  A high shelf runs around the whole shop displaying home décor, all very cool.  Turns out that the owners, Megan and Dan, opened the shop together about 1 ½ years ago, which was surprising because the shop really has a flow and an evolved sense of design, something that takes most people more time to develop.  Megan and Dan clearly know what they are doing, so much so, that they were turning consignors away due to having too much fabulous inventory.  But they were very nice about it.

This is how nice these people are.

There was an irresistible coat in the window on a mannequin. Now EVERYBODY knows if you want something off of a mannequin that is behind a curtain in the window, you ASK FOR HELP, for goodness sakes.  But no, Miss Experienced Shopper decided to just slip that coat right off of the mannequin all by herself.  With the coat halfway off, it got stuck and as I tried to ease the sweater-like fabric of the coat off of the canvas mannequin, the entire mannequin body fell off the stand with a resounding THUD and poor Megan came running.

They will never forget me.

At this point I would have purchased the coat out of obligation.  Fortunately, it was perfect.  They agreed to sell me the coat very quickly, probably hoping that I would get the hell out of their store.

It really is a great coat.

I will return if they will let me.

The criteria for a great shop goes something like this:

Great location

Superb organization

Shop design that flows from the outside in

Clear contract for consignors

Know what you want to sell and stick with it

Eye-catching displays

Cleanliness

Friendliness of staff

Invest in little signs that say, “Please ask for assistance before undressing mannequins.”   Or something along those lines.

Also got a completely unique skirt, which is another story.