What We Have Been Building: Transcend’s Brick-and-Mortar Era

For years, Transcend existed primarily through collections, pop-ups, online launches, and the stories behind the people and materials that shaped our products.

Then, in late 2025, everything changed.

We opened our first brick and mortar location at Pacific Place in downtown Seattle. Less than a year later, we expanded again, opening a second retail location at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

It has been one of the most exciting, demanding, and transformative chapters in Transcend’s history.

These spaces are more than places to shop. They represent a much bigger vision for what Transcend is becoming: a fashion brand, a circular production studio, a local employer, a training ground, a destination for craftsmanship, and a platform for artisan-made products from Seattle and around the world.

From an Online Brand to a Physical Experience

Transcend was founded on the belief that beautiful products can preserve heritage craftsmanship, create meaningful work, and give existing materials a longer life.

But some things are difficult to fully communicate through a screen.

You cannot always see the stitching on a vintage Kantha textile, feel the weight of a cashmere scarf, understand the craftsmanship in a hand-embroidered coat, or appreciate how completely different the two sides of a reversible bomber jacket can be.

Opening a physical space gave us the opportunity to invite customers into the full Transcend experience.

At our Pacific Place store (600 Pine St # C10, Seattle WA 98110), customers can browse clothing, gifts, accessories, and one-of-a-kind upcycled pieces while seeing parts of our production process happening in the same space. Products are designed, repaired, altered, upcycled, and produced by members of our local team.

The store allows people to experience the connection between the finished product and the hands that made it.

That connection has always been at the heart of Transcend.

Building a Store and a Production Studio Under One Roof

When we opened at Pacific Place in November 2025, we did not want to create a traditional retail store.

We wanted to build a working fashion space.

Our downtown Seattle location brings retail and production together. Customers may visit to shop for a travel blanket, a vintage Kantha bomber, a handmade journal, a cashmere scarf, or a one-of-a-kind gift. They may also come in to create a custom tailored garment from scratch, or bring their own garment from their closet that needs to be repaired, altered or completely reimagined. Adjacent to the retail experience is a growing circular production studio, and we are so excited that our local Seattle community has embraced this new business model.

Our team works with locally and globally sourced textile waste, vintage fabrics, deadstock materials, donated textiles, interior design swatches, and garments that customers already own. Depending on the material and the project, these textiles may become jackets, skirts, accessories, gifts, custom pieces, or entirely new products.

The goal is not simply to keep fabric out of a landfill.

It is to give that material enough design, craftsmanship, and meaning that someone wants to keep it in circulation.

One of the clearest examples of this was an upcycled jacket created by Maryam, one of the talented seamstresses on our team. The jacket was constructed using all reclaimed textiles and was one of our highest price point items sold. This validates our assumption that there is a demand and market for beautiful and functional products created from reusable textiles that would otherwise end up in landfills.

To us at Transcend, this opportunity represents so much of what we are trying to prove: surplus, deadstock, and unused textile is not waste or worthless. Skilled labor is not an afterthought. When thoughtful design and exceptional craftsmanship come together, discarded materials can become something extraordinary.

Creating More Meaningful Fashion Jobs in Seattle

Our brick-and-mortar growth has also allowed us to build a stronger local team.

Transcend now works with a growing network of more than 20 refugee and immigrant artisans, seamstresses, artists, and production partners. Some work from our studio, while others contribute from home based on their skills, schedules, and personal circumstances.

Many of the women we work with learned sewing through family, culture, or necessity. They bring years of embedded skill and lived experience, but often have not had access to formal fashion training, professional manufacturing environments, or meaningful opportunities within the industry.

We believe this workforce represents an enormous, frequently overlooked opportunity.

As Transcend grows, we are working to create more structured employment, better training, clearer production systems, and longer-term career pathways. Several roles that began as 100% contract work have now transitioned into W-2 employment, an important step as we build a more stable company and a more dependable workplace.

This work is not easy.

Responsible growth means taking on real payroll, scheduling, training, management, operations, and compliance. It requires far more infrastructure than simply outsourcing production when an order comes in.

But if we want to talk seriously about responsible fashion, we also have to talk about what kind of employment the industry creates.

For us, growth cannot only mean selling more products. It must also mean building better systems for the people who make them.

Taking Transcend to the Airport

In June 2026, we opened our second brick-and-mortar location at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport through the Port of Seattle’s SPARKS program.

Our kiosk is located at Seattle-Tacoma International airport on Concourse C, near Gate C2, where travelers from around the country and the world can discover Transcend.

The airport location created a completely different opportunity for the brand.

Travel has always influenced our products. Our collections are shaped by heritage textiles, global craftsmanship, movement, memory, and the idea that what we wear and carry can connect us to places and people.

At Sea-Tac, that story reaches travelers in real time.

Our airport assortment includes reversible bomber jackets, cashmere scarves, travel blankets, sleeping masks, toiletry bags, makeup bags, journals, accessories, and gifts made with vintage, reclaimed materials made by local and global artisans.

Many customers are looking for something meaningful to bring home from Seattle. Others are discovering Transcend during a layover, before a flight, or while visiting the region.

For a small business, airport retail is an incredible opportunity, but it is also an operational leap.

The kiosk operates 365 days a year with long daily hours. That has required us to hire and train a dedicated retail team, build more dependable inventory systems, improve production planning, and learn how to serve a much faster-moving customer environment.

It has challenged us to become more disciplined and more prepared.

It has also shown us how strongly customers respond to products with a story.

Travelers want to know who made something, where the materials came from, why no two pieces are exactly alike, and how their purchase supports local and global artisan communities.

A New Kind of Seattle Fashion Destination

With our Pacific Place store and Sea-Tac kiosk, Transcend now reaches customers at two very different points in their Seattle experience.

At the airport, customers can discover travel-ready products and locally connected gifts while moving through one of the region’s most international spaces.

At Pacific Place, they can slow down, experience our larger collection, see the production studio, meet members of the team, bring in garments for repair or tailoring, and understand more deeply how our products are made.

Together, the two locations allow us to tell a fuller story about Seattle.

Seattle is a city shaped by global communities, innovation, environmental values, creativity, and movement. Transcend reflects all of those things.

We are locally rooted, but globally connected.

We work with refugee and immigrant artisans in the Seattle area while continuing relationships with artisan communities and production partners in India. Some of our products are made locally from reclaimed textiles. Others preserve traditional embroidery, weaving, printing, quilting, and handcraft techniques passed through generations.

The common thread is intention.

We want customers to know the materials, the makers, and the meaning behind what they purchase.

Growth, Recognition and the Work Behind the Scenes

This brick-and-mortar chapter has coincided with some major milestones for Transcend.

We have received recognition from organizations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which named Transcend among America’s Top 100 Small Businesses. I was also selected as a 2026 Tory Burch Foundation Fellow, joining a community of women founders building businesses designed to last.

Transcend has participated in programs and accelerators, including NextCycle, that have helped us strengthen our thinking around circular systems, infrastructure, scale, and long-term impact.

We have also received public and community support for our textile circularity work, including funding from Seattle Public Utilities to build a more connected local system for sourcing, sorting, repairing, upcycling, tracking, and recirculating textiles.

These recognitions matter because they validate the work.

But they do not remove the daily challenges of building a small business.

Behind every milestone are long hours, operational decisions, cash-flow pressures, staffing needs, training, production delays, inventory questions, customer feedback, and constant problem-solving.

Opening two locations has required Transcend to grow up quickly.

We have had to move from founder-led improvisation toward clearer systems, stronger leadership, more defined roles, and a team empowered to manage daily operations.

That evolution is still happening.

What We Are Building Next

The brick-and-mortar era is not simply about having two places to sell products.

It is the foundation for what comes next.

We are expanding our local production capacity, developing more products from Seattle’s textile waste, growing our repair and upcycling services, building stronger workforce training programs, and creating new ways for companies and organizations to work with us.

Transcend now supports customers and partners across four connected areas:

• Clothing, gifts, accessories, and travel products for individual customers

• Alterations, repair, tailoring, and custom upcycling

• Wholesale and customized products for retailers, companies, conferences, hotels, and events

• Sampling, product development, and small-batch production for brands and organizations

All of these areas connect back to the same larger vision.

We want to build a fashion ecosystem in which materials remain in use longer, craftsmanship is valued, customers have access to more meaningful products and services, and skilled artisans have more opportunities to earn, grow, and lead.

There is still so much work ahead.

But when we look at our stores, our team, the products being made in our studio, the travelers discovering us at Sea-Tac, and the customers bringing garments back to life instead of throwing them away, we can see the beginnings of the company we have always wanted Transcend to become.

Visit Transcend in Seattle

Visit our flagship retail store and circular production studio at Pacific Place in downtown Seattle to shop the collection, explore locally made products, and learn about our alteration, repair, tailoring, and upcycling services.

Travelers can also find Transcend at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Concourse C, near Gate C2.

Whether you discover us downtown, at the airport, or online, every purchase helps us continue building a more circular, connected, and human fashion industry.