FauxyFurr has been around Seattle since 2001.

Follow along on the journey

In 2001 FauxyFurr got it’s start buying & selling American made vintage clothing at Seattle’s Fremont Sunday Market in a 10’ x 10’ pop-up tent.

2002 - Jac started up-cycling midcentury handbags and faux fur coats. These up-cycled items were sold at Seattle area street fairs and the Bellevue arts show in 2004.

2005- Jac applies to the Apparel Design Program at Seattle Central Community College. She spend 1 year completing the sewing requisites for entry into the program.

By 2006 - Jac spends two grueling years in clothing design school. She watched student after student drop out over those two years. She says it was the hardest thing she has ever done.

2007 - Joined the Etsy community selling vintage western boots online. Continues selling boots on eBay.

2008 - Jac graduates with her Technical Degree in Apparel Design from Seattle Central Community College. She is now versed in production sewing, pattern making, and textile history.  It’s the beginning of the 2008 recession and job prospects are extremely limited.

2008 - She begins a new career in custom upholstery learning to pattern, sew, and fabricate for hot rods & classic cars. She continues this work for 10 years.

2012 - Expands the online vintage store to include USA-MADE winter coats. She hunted for natural fibers and American Made Staples.

2013 - Started renting a small space in a store in old downtown Arlington, Wa. Here she sold vintage Cowboy boots for years. Jac spends a lot of time styling photo shoots for FauxyFurr.

2015 - In a chance moment, Jac and Jill meet in Jac’s backyard. They begin collaborating. Their first big adventure was a pop-up shop at the Winthrop Rhythm & Blues Festival and vending out of a 10’ x 10’ tent all weekend.

2016 - They built (with help from friends), a 24-foot pop-up trailer shop. They spent 4 summers on the road vending at open-air music events. During this season of travel, women kept asking to buy ankle boots, the feather earrings Jac always wore, and our personal hats.

2019 - Jac delivers her last full custom car interior to Joe Maxwell, bidding farewell to her upholstery career. She rebrands to FauxyFurr Vintage + Handmade and starts up-cycling vintage boots, creating feather earrings, and learning the art of hat making. This is the first time in 15 years she produced the designs she saw in her mind’s eye. This was a turning point in her life.

2019 - We become a store within a store. We had 500 sq feet and one window. We hired Nikki @_________to build our website and help us tell our story.

2020 - We survived COVID-19, re-evaluated our WHY as a company, and re-hired Jac’s sister Jen.

2021 - In January Jac starts studying hat-making under Wayne Wichern. Since then she has spent thousands of hours refining her craft.

2022 - Signed a new lease, and renovated a 100-year-old building in downtown Arlington. This process took us 9 grueling months. looking back, the kind of work you can’t believe you did.

2023 - We opened the newly renovated store in April. This new space is 4500+ square feet split between a front retail experience and a rear manufacturing/workshop.

2024 - Jac & Jill worked the hardest they had ever worked, delivering custom hats, refining manufacturing systems, training staff, expanding the retail merchandise. Learning from their mistakes, a lot of learning…

MEET THE TEAM AT FAUXYFURR IN ARLINGTON, WASHINGTON.

I founded FauxyFurr in 2001 at the age of 21, and we have been growing up together since then. What you see today is the accumulation of 24+ years of my artistic and entrepreneurial growth.

Several things have remained constant in those 24 years, creativity expressed through beautifying my surroundings & self-expression through my clothing.

Over the years, I’ve spent thousands of hours in solitude, working on FauxyFurr. When I needed more education, I enrolled myself in technical school. I sought mentorship when it would further my skill sets, and I slowly added employees as our concepts grew.

As talented as I was, it wasn’t until I met my wife in 2015 that I was able to start putting the pieces together in a way that was sustainable. A close friend once said, “Jill is the river banks & I am the river.” I couldn’t agree more.

At no point in my evolution have I felt “successful” or “satisfied”. I suppose this is the essence of the “tortured artist.”

My first memory crafting was a pinata I made myself for my 9th birthday. I checked a book out from the library at school, read the recipe, found the ingredients in the cupboard and went to work. This was long before Youtube.

My sister Jac and I have been collaborating through FauxyFurr since 2012. In the beginning, I would take photos of the vintage coats and create the Etsy listings. We were photographing and selling hundreds of coats back then.

In 2019 my roll changed as the business model changed. I started working in production, making Boho Boots & cutting leather hatbands. By 2021 I was designing & making our famous rooster feather earrings.

I love being a part of FauxyFurr and building something. I feel purpose in my work here and it inspires me, makes me feel alive.

Today I am in charge of upcyling cowboy boots into Boho Boots, making Boot Bands, dying feathers and designing/making our feather earring line.

I am a K-12 Marysville kid and my husband and I purchased my childhood home in 2018.

When I am not at FauxyFurr, you can find me taking care of my 4 wildly different children, enjoying a night in with my family and friends barbecuing & beating most people I play in the game, Cornhole.

I grew up a Pastors’ kid with my two sisters here in Washington State. We moved around a lot which forced us to learn how to make friends. As a kid I was a natural athlete and spent my free time playing basketball (when I wasn’t in church). I played ball in college but left before finishing my degree.

I’ve helped many start up businesses get going over the years. I’ve always preferred a supportive role in this way. I have strong organization skills and an eye for detail, skill sets every small business needs.

From the tender age of 20 I can remember writing in my journal I wanted to own my own business with my life partner. Simultaneously I have tried to start my own coffee shop several times over the last 30 years but those attempts never got off the ground.

When Jac and I met in 2015 we immediately started collaborating. She had a growing business that needed organization & someone who paid attention to the details.

In 2022 Jac and I had just signed the lease on a 4500 sq foot building in downtown Arlington. We were sitting around one evening and the idea of putting in our own micro coffee shop in the front corner of the building came up. This scared and excited me at the same time but Jac kept pressing. She believed in me, and she believed in us.

We spent the next several years writing our business plan, securing funding and fine tuning our concept. We started construction the summer of 2025, carefully navigating every detail. This coffee will be one of my greatest achievements to date, something I have desired for 30 years.

The Olympic Bar will be a micro coffee bar during the day and a micro cocktail bar at night. Stay tuned as we unveil Arlington’s next best kept secret.

xoxo