Portland #36 On GQ’s “40 Worst-Dressed Cities” List
For the average Portlander in the city’s pre-modern era—the 1980s and ’90s—social convention dictated what could be worn: outdoor gear with lots of zippers; floppy sandals and thick wool socks; plaid flannel; maybe a Stetson. Anyone who tried to affect an urban look was branded a “Californian.” But now, Portland, like, say, China, is no longer a traditional society and its immemorial fashions are being displaced and re-imagined as it’s sucked into the vortex of style modernity. The old and the new mix freely; confused, and unencumbered by the rigid aesthetic diktats of village life (shorts + Tevas + raincoat, regardless of weather), they mate promiscuously. The result is an embarrassment of bewildering sartorial neologisms, only to be found in Portland. Under the rain and grey skies, let a thousand style follies bloom. The global and the local have spawned the Portland douche bag: True Religion jeans and rhinestone-laden shirt set off by Oregon staples—cowboy boots and a fleece. At one of the city’s most New Yorkian bars, in the Ace Hotel, amid the ranks of identically plaid-shirted and black-framed hipsters, one might glimpse a fully gothed-out, red-headed woman, resplendent in a purple velvet cape and vintage Victorian dress, sitting alone eating French fries—the incongruous, the absurd—is Portland’s normal.
Read More http://www.gq.com/style/fashion/201107/worst-dressed-cities-america#ixzz1SlO6DA1Z
Besides this colorful description, I also have to appreciate that Chicago is accurately placed at #4, the one line description/accompanying photo of Burlington, VT, and that neither of the cities I originally hail from (Baltimore/D.C.) landed on the list (regardless of the fact that I would argue - cringing as I admit that Bradley Cooper’s character in Wedding Crashers sums up the unfortunate truth of typical Maryland style - brb, gotta check on my boat and then I’ve got a lacrosse game to go to - I still get to indulge in some sort of self-deluding pride here, right?)
