PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland holds one of the nation’s best boutiques, but you may have trouble finding it downtown — or searching its name on the internet.
Stand Up Comedy first opened on East Burnside in 2007 before relocating to its current space nestled in 511 SW Broadway. While the shop is nearing its 19th anniversary, The New York Times only recently named it among the top 50 clothing stores in the U.S. — despite its paradoxical name inspired by owner Diana Kim’s interest in performance, and its website that is “as analog as a digital site can probably be.”
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“It’s just helped us carve out maybe a little bit of not only an aesthetic niche, but also a sense of subversion and a sense of restraint,” Kim said of her store’s digital presence. “We’re not trying to be the biggest. There’s no way we can compete with that, so we can only do what we can do, and do it in a way that feels integral and honest to who we are.”
Kim previously worked as an art curator after attending Pennsylvania’s Bryn Mawr College. She later returned to her hometown with a renewed interest in opening a business like her parents, who operated bodegas, car washes and more in Portland. She described their entrepreneurship as the “typical immigrant story,” meanwhile the offerings in her downtown boutique are anything but typical.
“Experimental and avant-garde” fashion has long been an interest of Kim’s, according to the owner. She told KOIN 6 she buys much of the clothing for Stand Up Comedy from marketplaces in cities like New York and Paris, but some of her artist friends have also helped her to identify the emerging brands offered at the boutique…