ISSO

Is it true for you that your most treasured places, meals, shoes, what-have-you have come into your possession by happy accident? I would say that I’ve come by almost every one of my favorite travel memories, outfits, and meals because I happened to walk down a random street, when I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, and—poof!—there it was, the most amazing fish stew, a transcendent orange skirt, or a landscape that I wanted to carry in my mind forever.

OK, this little black dress perhaps isn’t quite “transcendent,” but I did find its store by happy accident, because I decided to take the J Church a few extra stops since I was with my 4-year-old boy, and a train ride is always an adventure worth prolonging. I had intended to visit another store in the Mission, but we got off at 24th and Church in Noe Valley, and within all of 30 seconds, I saw the sign:

ISSO
Found, made, or recycled in the SF Bay Area

I know the theme is all the thing right now, but the sign was too enticing—a store that exactly the fit the angle of my blog? I had to go, right?

The dress shown here is by She Bible, one of my go-to lines because the clothing is comfortable but sassy. This is a groovy little wrap dress that fits like a dream and, depending on your mood with stockings and such, can be made a little wacky or even a bit conservative.

ISSO is small, and they keep the selection small, so it doesn’t feel too crowded. The vintage racks are well edited, but they definitely have an identifiably “vintage-y” look.

For locally made clothing, in addition to She Bible and a few other indie designers, the store owners have their own line, also called ISSO. I really liked the pants produced by ISSO, in colored denim with reverse stitching, though they are cut for people at least 7 inches taller than myself. The fabrics are very cool, and the cuts current but not too trendy. I would like to have seen more attention to the finishing—some seams needed a bit of tidying—but I do hope they stick around.

Stay tuned: In the near future, I will be posting about Curator, the store opened in fall 2009 in Noe Valley by the She Bible design team of Deirdre Nagayama and Stacy Rodgers.

ISSO’s Web site is still under construction.

There are two store two locations:

3789 24th Street
(415) 920-9149

3608 19th Street
(415) 865-0969