Welcome to Beer & Gear, a series where we get to know individuals making big moves in Portland’s Athletic and Outdoor industries. In this edition, author Ellee Thalheimer talks with Gaia Giladi, founder of Kinship Fashion Coworking Studio in inner Southeast Portland.
“Fashion industry entrepreneurs deserve to be in a beautiful space where we are inspired to be creative, a place where we actually want to be,” says Gaia Giladi, founder of Kinship Fashion Coworking Space (1121 SE 2nd Ave), a community-oriented workspace designed for creatives, upstarts, and professionals seeking flexible desks and collaborative possibilities.
I hand Giladi a Von Ebert West Coast IPA, and she shows me around Kinship, which is undoubtedly lovely. Taking up a choice corner property in close-in Southeast, the floor-to-ceiling windows make it feel more like an indoor-outdoor space, with blonde wood floors, plants, and art brightening the sanctuary-like vibe.
Image courtesy Kinship Coworking.
The cozy blue couches are conducive to chatting, while the majority of the space is filled with shared cutting tables, dedicated desk spaces, and professional-grade sewing stations (equipped with fabulous equipment like the Juki Straight Stitch, Industrial Overlock, Industrial Union Special Coverstitch, and Industrial Consew Chainstitch).
Yet Kinship caters to more than just people making textiles. Photographers can rent the fully-equipped photo studio for lookbooks, product shoots, content creation, and branding sessions. Luxe private conference rooms are available for meetings, presentations, fittings, or strategy sessions—great options for marketing professionals and brand builders. Drop-in and multi-day packs of day passes are available, as well as a number of monthly membership options with various levels of access to office, design, and photography equipment.
“This is a place for fashion entrepreneurs to connect and lean into both silly little questions about specific projects or big, overarching creative questions,” says Giladi, who opened Kinship in 2025. “Do you need a model? Need a photographer? We are working on a centralized directory for members.”
Image courtesy Kinship Coworking.
In 2019, Giladi left a wide and varied fashion designing career in California to co-found HILOS, a Portland high-fashion, 3-D-printed footwear brand. She eventually decided to pivot, so she left HILOS to start Kinship because she couldn’t picture being able to create a fashion brand alone from a living room. She realized the conversations, feedback, and stories that are a part of a studio environment are a powerful source of inspiration.
“To create a bootstrapped fashion brand that thrives, you have to be around other people doing the same thing, to learn from each other and create something bigger,” says Giladi.
Image courtesy Kinship Coworking.
Since opening, Kinship has taken off. Portland is an epicenter for the outdoor and athletic industry, and that community has been frequenting the space and applauding it as a resource.
“They gush over the industrial machines,” laughs Giladi. “I hope one day Portland fashion can be taken as seriously as the athletic and outdoor industry, which has huge flagship brands here like Adidas and Nike. There are no big Portland fashion companies but a ton of small fashion brands and solo entrepreneurs who are doing fantastic things, who need a place to connect.”
Von Ebert Brewery
Von Ebert is one of eight breweries who collaborated with the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts in a statewide initiative called Oregon I Am. These breweries created special beers to promote the Oregon I Am map, which highlights and celebrates protected lands and conservation efforts across Oregon. Von Ebert’s Oregon I Am Beer was the Modern Mosaic Pils.
Ellee Thalheimer is a Portland-based freelance writer and guidebook author. When she can’t get to the trails, she’s writing fiction, relishing local IPAs, falling off bouldering walls, and obsessively scheming the next adventure. Find her on Instagram: @ellee_thalheimer.
