Hip Hop Shopping -- First Avenue Is Seattle's Place To Mix And Mosh

YOU WANT FUNKY vintage shopping, perhaps a lava lamp and a coffee table shaped like a big, squashed kidney, go to Fremont.

You want leather, Doc Martens, or anything black, head to Broadway Avenue. For classy labels, designer lipsticks, department-store glitz and chain stores, try downtown or Bellevue Square.

But if you want boutique labels, one-of-a-kind outfits, youthful trendiness and some of the most intriguing fashion around, shop First Avenue.

I'm talking about a seven-block stretch from Union Street on the south to Bell Street on the North and anchored in the middle by the Pike Place Market, which hangs below it like a convenient picnic basket. Though some of the retailers on the street like to refer to their neighborhood as "boutique row," I prefer to think of it simply as First Avenue - the only retail district in Seattle that hints at the hip fashion melange of Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and the artsy sophistication of West Broadway or Prince Street in SoHo.

In the style of such cutting-edge shopping districts, First Avenue is about the funky and the avant-garde. It's about retailing as cultural anthropology - check out Zebra Club for the latest gear for trendoid youth - and installation art. (For a visual feast visit Darbury Stenderu, a small shop selling handpainted silk clothes that have a certain baroque aesthetic, despite their unavoidable comparison to couture hippie garb. Festooned with silk banners and

appointed with rough-hewn wrought iron fixtures, the shop might be the atelier of an artistic sorcerer.)

Window displays on First Avenue are weirder and more daring than what would be tolerated at a mall. Just why does Baby & Co. - which, despite its name, has nothing to do with maternity or children's wear - always have those fans blowing at its window mannequins? And why are they wearing latex swimcaps with dresses? And shoppers can often chat with the shop owners, who log plenty of hours minding the store.

(As any serious shopper knows, shopping requires stamina and pacing. Not to be overlooked is First Avenue's excellent array of support services for shoppers, including any number of lunch and liquid refreshment stops, such as the Virginia Inn, Queen City Grill and dozens of great spots at the market.

Those who never tarry west of The Bon Marche's Third Avenue entrance are surprised when I wax poetic about shopping First. Friends over 35 assume there's nothing there but stores selling giant jeans to skateboarders or monster-footed shoes to rock 'n rollers.

Such people are misinformed. Yes, the wildest shoe store in town, John Fluevog Shoes, is on First Avenue near the Zebra Club, where you can get jeans big enough for a sumo wrestler. But the street also is home to a pair of the most fashionable shoe emporiums in the area, the his-and-hers Ultima stores (a shop for each gender), and a half dozen clothes shops, including Uno for men and Duo for women, where even lawyers could find something to wear to work on days when they're not before the bench.

I do not wear monster jeans or bigfoot shoes. But I've found plenty to buy over the years along First Avenue, ranging from a favorite silver cuff I bought years ago at Goldman's Jewelers, one of the city's best spots for art jewelry, to a chic black knit skirt from Fast Forward, a store that's East Village hipness would likely not cause passersby to look inside for versatile black skirts. Did I mention the fabulous plum taffeta mules I found (on sale, no less) at Ultima?

And there's more to tempt me all the time. Savvy retailers - from Seattle and elsewhere - are deciding that First Avenue is the hot address in town. Dakota, a locally-owned retailer of stylish, understated career and leisure wear for women, recently moved from Union Square to First Avenue near Lenora Street. "People down here are looking for something a little more unusual than what they find at the mass merchants," said Barbara Brunner, Dakota owner.

Says Jason Harler, co-owner of Fast Forward, which sells edge fashion for young men and women: "We moved here from Capitol Hill two years ago because we think it's cool." Besides clothes, accessories, millinery and a few well-chosen, one-of-a-kind housewares appropriate for a downtown loft, Fast Forward houses an art gallery in back of the store.

Walk and Shop

On days when I intend to shop First in a methodical way, I start at the south on First and Union, just up from the Seattle Art Museum. I'm an admirer of retro jewelry, the costume jewelry of the '30s and '40s, so I always pop into Diamond Lil's near the southwest corner. Owner Jodi Lantz pays her rent selling moderately priced new jewelry that looks vintage, including a good selection of marcasite. But her real love is the old stuff and for connoisseurs of retro, she has one of the best selections in town.

Heading north there's Rudy's Vintage Clothing near Pike, across the street from De Laurenti's Italian Grocery. The sisters who run Rudy's deal in clothes and accessories from the '30s, '40s and '50s and are especially proud of their collection of vintage watches, all in working order.

On the block above the market there's Retro Viva, which stocks lots of youthful denim, silver-toned jewelry, inexpensive shades and cat-in-the-hat millinery. Ultima shoes for well-shod men is nearby, along with Goldman's Jewelers, and Local Brilliance, a charming, affordable women's boutique where owner Renata Tatman designs some of the clothes herself and tries to fill the rest of her racks with apparel from innovative local designers.

Though technically not on First Avenue, The Forum, a shop for men with a taste for updated style, is a few steps down Pine toward the market. Alhambra is just across First on Pine heading east. It's a new shop offering a classy mix of ethnic-flavored clothes for women and loads of nice-quality, moderately priced jewelry imported from the Middle East.

The stretch between Pine and Stewart is filled with shops, many appealing. But I usually beeline for John Fluevog Shoes at the corner of Stewart and First and study the gothic clompers in the window. Four-inch platforms aren't my style, but I've tried on some of the store's non-elevated shoes and they're comfortable, really. For cute, cute kid clothes, there's Boston Street Baby Store across the street, which has moved from Queen Anne.

Midway up the next block toward Virginia is Uno, a small, elegantly merchandised, four-year-old men's store with a certain je ne sais quoi Euro flair. If a man wanted a sleek, lightweight, gabardine sports coat in cobalt blue or apple green - two of the hottest sports coat colors this summer in Italy - Uno has them. Virginia Inn is on the corner, and offers prompt service and a congenial atmosphere, even for solo shoppers.

Across the street is Baby & Co., the street's fashion pioneer. Owners Babette (who's always been called Baby, hence the shop's name) and her husband Uri Burstyn were considered nuts when they opened the store on First at Virginia 17 years ago. But by hunting down innovative, new designers - the Burstyns bought such trendy labels as Kenzo and Girbaud years before department stores picked them up - they built a reputation and loyal clients even in the years when their only neighbors were taverns. Baby & Co. still caters to women with an artistic flair and a nose for the new.

Heading toward Lenora is the Zebra Club; Jack Hammer, a great place for '70s retro wear, Hawaiian shirts, and vintage leather; and Isadora's Antique Clothing, where vintage shopping is elevated to theater and the young clerks look as though they've just stepped out of an Oscar Wilde play. The luxuriously displayed Isadora's suggests an elegant 19th-century salon. Many of the clothes are museum pieces. Covering this block can take some time, since C.P. Shades, Dakota and Fast Forward also are here. C.P. Shades is a Sausilito, Calif.-based manufacturer and retailer of informal, unconstructed rayon and cotton clothes for women. A company spokeswoman said C.P. Shades chose to locate on First because the street "has great energy and there's a kind of underground happening scene there."

Nearing the end of my route, I stop into Darbury Stenderu. Darbury Stenderu herself is in the store most Saturdays and it's worth the trip to see her - a tall woman with a sculpted face and faraway demeanor - wearing her own splendid, simply-cut clothes. Duo, a block further north, is run by the wife of the man who owns Uno and draws an arty young crowd from Belltown as well as career women. It always has a good selection of jewelry that looks like artwear, but is priced like costume jewelry.

It's the end of my trip and I haven't mentioned the several terrific bookstores, a couple of smart home furnishing boutiques, the Federal Army & Navy Surplus (fashion for urban guerrillas) or Great Pacific Patagonia, purveyor of high tech wear for the unflinchingly outdoorsy.

Find them yourself. It's not hard. They're on First.

Robin Updike is a Seattle Times Style reporter. Benjamin Benschneider is a Times photographer.