Portland’s iconic Jantzen Building has been beautifully restored to house VIDA Coworking’s shared workspace.
Starting a business can be really scary. When we were working to open VIDA Coworking, we often felt as though we were about to take a terrifying leap off of a high dive. So, when we walked up to the historic Jantzen Swimwear Building and saw that iconic diving-girl logo above the front door, we knew we found our home.
Fast forward, and we’re thrilled to be the newest tenant of the Jantzen Building, a historic office building in inner Northeast Portland. Built in 1929, it was designed by prominent local architect Richard Sundeleaf as a commission for Jantzen, a Portland swimwear brand that revolutionized women’s aquatics. The building housed Jantzen’s world headquarters from 1929 until 2002, when the brand was purchased by Perry Ellis.
Today, the Jantzen building has been beautifully restored to house VIDA Coworking’s shared workspace. It’s the perfect space, both in function and location, for our boutique office space.
The company’s specialty was the famous Jantzen swimsuits for women. In fact, they actually invented the term “swimsuits.” Jantzen was the first to design and market women’s swimsuits built for sports like swimming, rowing and sailing, rather than simply “bathing suits” designed for passive dips.
That’s, in part, what makes their logo so recognizable. It’s of a woman in a bright-red strapless swimsuit, complete with a scarlet diving cap. She’s captured in mid-air, her body forming a graceful curve worthy of a gold-medal dive.
But it all started in 1913, when co-founder Carl Jantzen was the first to make a commercial two-piece women’s swimsuit, introduced in honor of the women’s swimming entrance at the Olympics. Jantzen would go on to produce a huge range of women’s swimwear options over the decades, from sturdy one-pieces designed for lap swimming and diving, to customizable bikinis with adjustable straps to minimize tan lines.
For women who’d grown up wearing loose, full-body “bathing costumes” that could weigh 20 pounds when wet (yeesh!), the experience of slipping into a stretchy, form-fitting suit and heading down to the river for a quick swim must have felt like the very definition of liberation.
The Jantzen Building is enormous, and the portion of the building we’ve taken over was an addition made to the building in 1960. It includes the Jantzen company’s swankiest offices, and it is a treasure trove of mid-century modern design.
We’re made some updates to the space, but we’re also keeping the coolest details like old-school clocks, built-in cabinetry, tucked-away rooftop patios, and the pièce de resistance: the perfectly preserved Jantzen board room. It’s complete with Mad Men-style hidden chalk boards and a stunning wall mural of the “World of Jantzen.” Not gonna lie; it feels like a poetic justice that years ago a male-dominated board schemed here about how to get rich via bikinis, but today it’s where so many female VIDA Members will launch their amazing big ideas.
Jantzen now operates out of Perry Ellis’ headquarters in Miami, Florida (seems apropos for a swimwear brand). Yet, a small part of its trailblazing spirit lives on in Northeast Portland. The diving girl still presides over the main entrance to the Jantzen Building. It’s a small, subtle, but impactful reminder of the women who came before us, the battles they fought, and the waves they made. Every morning on our way to the office, we’ll see that diving beauty encouraging us to take a deep breath and jump in.
VIDA Coworking is a unique shared workspace in Portland, Oregon. Looking to join a wonderful community of career-minded individuals? Contact us today to schedule a tour.