In Store: Pepper Unveils Some Unusual Threads

January 14, 2011 at 9:44 AM | by Visitor

With its exterior walls covered in unique clothing, the store is hard to miss.

Even though the temperature is hovering just above freezing, Pepper Petersen doesn’t seem to take notice when the cold gusts of wind rustle her hair as she sews a garment on her three year-old shop’s patio.

“When I opened this shop in the winter, I was out here in a one-piece ski suit,” she says with a chuckle.

Her store, Pepper, is located just off the busy Alki Beach in West Seattle. Overflowing with both hand stitched items and vintage finds from Gap and Eddie Bauer, Peterson is busy making one-of-a-kind pieces that are selling fast. Her items range anywhere from $38-$2,000 for handmade garments marked with a pink tag, while other items that she hasn’t sewn from scratch run anywhere between $16.50-$100.

The interior of Pepper’s store is overflowing with her handmade creations.

The former Nordstrom product developer takes a moment to adjust her black skirt and its voluminous petticoat. Beneath a gaucho hat, her brown hair falls loosely around her face, barely braising her Colonel Sanders tie as she walks back into her 500 square-foot boutique.

“People will come here for theme parties a lot,” she says pulling on a pink crochet dress. “They come in here and are really stimulated by these clothes.”

Sifting through dozens of Lady Gaga-esque garments - a shirt with curly clown hair attached onto the neckline, a dress made entirely of silk fashion scarves – she can’t recall how some were constructed since it could have easily been made eight years ago at the when she started her collection after graduating from the fashion program at Seattle Central Community College. From behind a corner, she pulls out another one of her creations--a jump suit attached to a plastic expandable ball.

Pepper reinforces the finishing touches to a dress.