Jennifer Foster, owner of Underground Green Clothier and Country Girl Gardens all natural body products, says her business tripled when she added clothing to her store in Sanford & Son’s Middle Floor Merchants.

Foster has a unique philosophy toward creativity and business. She knows her green thinking sets her apart from most other clothing shops downtown.

“I’m the only one doing this in Tacoma,” she explains. “I know I’m doing it right, because it comes from the heart.”

Her alternative fiber fashions are geared toward hip, cutting-edge customers.  These aren’t your typical hemp-hippie wraps. Everything on her shelves looks like it belongs in a boutique on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, but you won’t find anything made in China.

“Everything I have in my store needs to be made in the U.S. or a country where I know the employees are treated well,” says Foster.

The clothes Foster sells are made from sustainable fibers like hemp, bamboo (luxurious), organic cotton and flax. Add a commitment to small companies and affordable pricing, and you have some of the most wearable garments in the city.

This is truly an innovative business. It is good to see someone using their creativity to care for everyone impacted by their commerce. Designer to laborer to customer, to the other merchants sharing the foot traffic nearby, this is a holistic business built on care.

“I was tired of the mall, and it doesn’t feel right to me buying something that took 20,000 gallons of water to manufacture,” she adds.

Men’s and women’s clothing, and Foster’s very own handmade natural body care products, make this shop a destination for any conscious shopper.

Alan Gorsuch — co-owner of Sanford & Son, who has been in the antique business for longer than I’ve been alive — has slowly been transforming his triple floor building into, as he says, “an incubator for small businesses.” There are 22 shops currently on the middle floor. In a week, there will be nine more on the bottom floor with doors on Commerce near the last stop on the Tacoma Link Light Rail.

“A number of the businesses that started here have outgrown us and been replaced already”, says Gorsuch as he hammers a shim into a new set of French doors. Gorsuch had to get creative with his space when eBay turned the antique market on its head. He still deals antiques, but he’s creating a lot of community at the same time.

[Country Girl Gardens, noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, 743 Broadway, Suite 206, Tacoma, 253.820.4360]