As the retail core in the Wallingford Center has been diminished, I am glad one of the remaining business fixtures in Wallingford that I enjoy shopping for my wife and still standing is Yazdi. The store, located on the second floor of the Wallingford Center has been a fixture for 38 years and counting. As you enter the Wallingford Center and approach Yazdi, looking up you get a sense of something unique about Yazdi. The beautiful dragon tapestry (George the Dragon, all the way from Bali) looking down is quite impressive and immediately piques interest in what other unusual or interesting items you may find as you enter the store.
Yazdi offers beautiful women’s clothing in contemporary styling & exotic natural fabrics. It is a unique mix of modern fashions and extraordinary finds from around the world, in a wide range of sizes, from missy up to plus. They also carry also carry an outstanding collection of scarves, hats, and jewelry to accessorize each look. I find the store very nicely organized and well stocked, making browsing quite a pleasant experience.
I have found the store to be well stocked and its articles are continuously updated, especially as the seasons transition. Currently the store is stocked with fall clothing items and accessories indicative of the Halloween season.
I have always found the staff to be friendly & very helpful. As the holidays are approaching, I always make it a point to visit Yazdi to see what interesting items have arrived. Please visit www.yazdiseattle.com to learn about new arrivals.
Yazdi is also quite active in supporting local events or organizations like Historic Wallingford or the summer parade which is greatly appreciated by the neighborhood.
The Yazdi Story
A brief history of Yazdi follows and describes how they have become a fixture in Wallingford.
The beginnings of Yazdi go way back to the Middle East in the 1970’s, the Shah of Iran was in power, and an adventurous woman with an unquenchable love of travel and foreign places was teaching English in the beautiful city of Isfahan. Noted for its architecture and gorgeous mosques, Isfahan lies in south central Iran, 175 miles from the ancient town of Yazd. For centuries Yazd was a center of Zoroastrianism, noted for its high quality of handicrafts. Its ancient bazaar still draws pilgrims and shoppers from far away, and it is there that Louise Jones was drawn across the desert in search of the beautiful & exotic. She discovered a passion for bead collecting that lasted her lifelong and it is during that time that she pursued the process of understanding the origins and history behind each piece she purchased. She was a natural anthropologist who was intensely interested in the local culture wherever she traveled, reading as much as she could of the history of the forces that defined the present-day society. Before long she was making exceptional pieces of jewelry put together from her collecting and selling them in Seattle at specialty shops when she returned home on vacations.
Shortly before the Shah was deposed, Jones returned to Seattle, resulting in the opening of the first Yazdi in 1976 in the newly remodeled Pike Place Market. The shop was a pioneer in ethnically influenced clothing and was described as one of the hidden jewels in the Market, reflecting her highly personalized taste & individualism, full of handpicked items from her travels. Yazdi, in Arabic meaning ‘person or thing from Yazd’, seemed almost a mirage to those who thirsted after real finds in unusual attire, offering unique Asian, South American, Indian, Thai, and Nepalese clothes and accessories that are nowadays difficult to find. She filled the shop with beautiful cloths and hand-wovens, painted and beaded antique fabrics, block prints and tribal jewelry–anything she found that she loved.
Louise continued to travel often, loving the experience of new places and what she might find. As the years went on, she found it more difficult to import from certain countries in the Middle East and began to focus her trips on Bali. There she found a wealth of traditional textile art to inspire her own designs, and the facility to manufacture in a more focused way. The shop was changing to more clothing and accessories after its first years. Her daughter Julia Garmire began to assist and travel with her and together they began to manufacture the Yazdi label clothing that has been so successful to this day. Produced by several separate, family-owned factories, Yazdi is blessed to have strong ties with our friends in Bali and to be mutually supportive.
In 1986, Louise and her daughter opened a new store in the Wallingford Center allowing the opportunity to expand the business into a more diversified, contemporary woman’s clothing boutique. Many new lines were added to the eclectic mix and Yazdi became more of what it is today. In 1992, Louise died suddenly and left a void in the business that can never be filled. Julia stepped up to manage the business and ensure its continued success and manages the store to this day. As you are planning your holiday shopping activities, I encourage you to stop by this iconic store, to peruse the interesting items in search of a special gift or outfit for a holiday event.
The picture shows the owner Julia and Kim, the store manager. 