articles
How Hosting Is Changing in 2026
Seattle event planner Reneille Velez on the end of champagne escort walls and the return of thoughtful hosting.
Reneille Velez spends her days thinking about how people arrive in a room. Not just where they hang their coats or grab a drink, but how those first moments feel—the lighting, the sound, the sense that someone thought carefully about what it would be like to walk through the door. As the founder of GIAN,…
The Restaurateur: Lily Wu
The food-forward entrepreneur with a heart for community.
There has never been a grand, overarching plan guiding Lily Wu’s life. Indeed, from her childhood in a small village in northeast China to her standing as one of Seattle’s rising-star restaurant owners, everything has unfolded step by step, but whenever a chance came along, she never hesitated to take it. “I come from a…
Nordic Pop Comes to the Nordic Museum
An afternoon concert brings Seattle singers, strings, and percussion together for a dreamy midwinter dance party.
January in Seattle is a mood. The light is thin all day, and by midafternoon it starts to collapse into night. It’s the time of year when any plan that involves leaving the house has to earn its keep. This is where Nordic Pop comes in. On Sunday afternoon, January 18, Seattle musician and producer…
The Record-Breaker: Skylar Diggins
The standout Storm player advocating for women in sports.
Skylar Diggins was a star before she ever touched down in Seattle. She’d won an Olympic gold medal in 2020, been named a WNBA All-Star six times, and pioneered a new era of marketing opportunities. She was the first women’s basketball player to have more than 1 million followers on Instagram and one of the…
The Rise of the Experience Economy
REI brings back guided travel, betting that memories matter more than stuff.
In my household, with two young boys under the age of five, we often have to remind them to take things back. Did you really mean to tell dad that his dinner isn’t good? You might want to take that back. Did your brother deserve to be hit? Let’s rethink that one. Extreme analogies aside,…
The Artist: Shogo Ota
The designer behind some of the city’s most prominent murals—and the poster for its biggest sporting event of the year.
When artist Shogo Ota learned his design had been chosen as Seattle’s official FIFA World Cup poster, he was so surprised that he nearly had to pull his car over. “I couldn’t believe it,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve been making posters for local bands and events for over fifteen years, but this was…
Bellevue Is Treating Accessibility Like Infrastructure
A partnership with Wheel the World makes it easier to plan travel with verified details.
For a lot of people, the hardest part of travel planning isn’t arranging flights or booking a hotel. It’s figuring out whether a place will actually work for your needs once you get there. Bellevue has partnered with Wheel the World, a travel platform used worldwide, to verify accessibility details for hotels, attractions, restaurants, and…
The Cultural Torchbearer: Barbara Earl Thomas
The visual artist representing Seattle around the world.
“When I was a kid, I would lie in bed in the morning and have this feeling that something amazing could happen,” says artist Barbara Earl Thomas. “It didn’t always happen, but there was that feeling that it could. That’s still how it is when you’re in the studio working. It’s just crazy wonderful to…
Restaurant Roundup: Mocktails, Blindfolds, and an Oyster Soiree
Here’s what was served up recently in the Emerald City.
Making dinner reservations, like New Year’s resolutions, means looking ahead and committing to something without being entirely sure of the outcome. To help you know what you’re signing up for in your forays into Seattle’s dining scene, the newly minted Resy Hit List has some valuable tips on where to focus your efforts. Taking the…
The Mayor: Katie Wilson
The local leader who shook up the city’s political landscape.
Katie Wilson didn’t start 2025 planning to be mayor. “If you had told me at the beginning of this year that I would be the mayor-elect* right now, I would’ve been like, ‘What are you smoking?’” she says with a laugh. But the February special election changed that. Proposition 1A—a new business tax on high…
Eccentric Scents
Lucky thirteen.
Known for his devotion to beauty and patronage of the arts, King Ludwig II is the strange inspiration behind Immortal Perfumes’ newest scent. Developed by Seattle perfumer (and lover of history and literature) Jen Siems, Swanstone Reverie marks the brand’s 13th anniversary, opening “with the sparkle of champagne and ghostly violets, unfurling into a heart…
Holding the Line
Skijoring’s wild mix of skiing and horsepower is pulling new crowds across the West and giving Washington’s winter a rush of its own.
The thousand-pound horse barrels forward, muscles flickering under its winter coat as its rider leans forward, urging the animal to go faster. Snow explodes in every direction. A skier grips the 33-foot rope trailing behind, his skis skimming the surface as they surge over a 750-foot course at 40 miles an hour. “It’s the biggest…
The Design Star: Michael Bennett
The former NFL player exploring history and culture through design.
Last September, as Seattle’s summer slipped into the golden light of fall, a simple structure made from cross-laminated timber appeared at Seattle’s Northwest African American Museum. Called Night Chapel, it stood vigil in front of the historic brick building for three months as a space for contemplation, meditation, and communal gathering. Designed by former NFL…
A New Year of Influence
Seattle magazine’s Most Influential list kicks off 2026 with leaders across the city.
New year, new issue! As we kick off 2026, Seattle magazine is proud to present this year’s cohort of the Most Influential list, which showcases local leaders in politics, philanthropy, arts, hospitality, and business. Determined, creative, empathetic, humble, and bold are just a few of the words you’ll see describing them—each one has achieved great…
Cozy Coastal Escapes
Who says the beach is only for summertime fun? These six spots, from British Columbia to California, highlight the beauty of the West Coast, all year round.
It all began with a simple scene: a roaring fire at San Ysidro Ranch, a glass of wine within reach, and a card game unfolding on the table. A quiet evening moment that sparked the notion of a coastal winter journey, where the season’s most alluring escapes share one element: the dancing flame. Whether it’s…
5 Things to Eat in January
Make trying a neighborhood restaurant your New Year's resolution.
It was a long wait to get into Kabul, Wallingford’s longtime favorite Afghan restaurant. This was the last week of service before it shuttered. I have passed by this place for years and even worked at a restaurant across the street. Kabul’s mural of the National Geographic Afghan Girl cover—an image that has come to…
Welcome to the Moll House
Meet Amanda and Hana—twin University of Washington students and pole vaulting champs coming to a Wheaties box near you.
“I got this.” This simple mantra, uttered by Amanda Moll, is accompanied by a deep breath to ground herself. It sounds laughably modest, considering that Amanda’s pre-competition ritual has allowed her to do what most of us would find impossible: fly with the grace of a gazelle and the height to clear a full-grown giraffe….
The Queen of the Seattle World’s Fair
With a fur coat and gold Cadillac, Gracie Hansen struck a figure. Her business savvy and whip-smart humor made her a star.
In 1960, a group of well-attired men from the Seattle World’s Fair planning committee gathered in a downtown office. With the fair only two years away, people were starting to pitch their business ideas and on this day, some lady wanted to meet with them to do the same. At the scheduled time, the door…
Cookies From Home
Seattle author Kat Lieu introduces a first-of-its-kind cookbook centered on Asian cookies.
Kat Lieu has built a career out of baking, storytelling, and standing up for what she believes in. A former doctor of physical therapy turned bestselling cookbook author, she’s based in Seattle, is the founder of the online community Subtle Asian Baking and is the author of Modern Asian Baking at Home, a book that…
A Different Way To Date
What happens when dating apps surface real-life chemistry instead of profiles.
The perils of contemporary dating—especially trying to find love, or lust, online—are widely known. Exhausting, disappointing, and in some cases dangerous, swiping on strangers has become the ubiquitous norm. Amelia Bonow, founder of the Shout Your Abortion campaign, hopped on the apps during the pandemic and soon found herself underwhelmed by the selection. “I realized…
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