Local Facebook fashion critics are my favorite. For someone interested in fashion as a cultural comment, I'm always curious about what people choose to post. And documenting style sins via social media is the best of two worlds: the brutal honesty of a private gossip session with your BFF with a controlled dose of public shaming.
Take, for instance, this gem that popped up in my feed a few weeks ago: "Apparently I missed the fashion memo that it is now cool to wear stretch pants with shirts so short that you're rockin' visible camel toe ... ?? If I'm seeing this on the streets of Anchorage, then it must be like old news in NY & LA, right?"
Anchorage, it's been a little more than a year since Travel & Leisure magazine put us at the bottom of its list of the worst-dressed people in America. And if we're adding visible camel toe to the rap sheet of fashion crimes (I'm thinking right above Carhartts as business casual and below Crocs as an all-purpose option?), it's worth asking if the worst-dressed title did anything to advance our aesthetic or just cement us in careless and casual ways.
That's why photographer Loren Holmes and I hit the streets of downtown Anchorage during the August First Friday Art Walk and Live After Five concert in search of whether or not a year had changed us -- and our clothes. We stopped a few locals to talk about what they were wearing and what they thought of our style one year later.
Spoiler alert: Being voted the Worst Dressed City in America didn't galvanize the gussying up of our masses. We paid no attention to the fashion advice doled out. There was no rush on Nordstrom, clearing the shelves of wing tips and monk straps, pebbled-leather cross-body bags, Diesel jeans and DVF wrap dresses. Instead, most of you shrugged, laughed in complete agreement and consistently targeted Fred Meyer as ground zero for bad fashion choices. (If you take nothing else away from this story, please know your neighbors are watching you at the grocery store and judging.) And for those of you bravely set in your anti-fashion ways, you treated it like an accessory for your sartorial self-assurance: Being the worst dressed is a badge of honor.
Here are the highlights:
• Jake Turtle, Wasilla: A recent graduate of Wasilla High School -- "a pretty terribly-dressed high school," he joked -- Jake Turtle said he does wear Carhartts to work all day, so the "fancy" ensemble, including a plaid blazer and white button up, he donned for First Friday was a happy alternative because, "you have to look presentable." On being the worst dressed city: "I think Anchorage actually has a lot of fashion, I mean, we get all of the same clothes (as the Lower 48). It's the attitude."
• Richard Ragle, Anchorage: Richard Ragle is a bit of a Utilikilt aficionado. He owns three and embraces his functional fashion statement … sort of: "Why not? I wear it a lot. I only wear it to the office on Halloween, but I wear it out all the time. I work with a lot of engineers and it's a little out of their comfort zone." On being the worst-dressed city: "It fits with our culture; it fits with our personality."
• Ashley Blomfield, Anchorage: The "Live After Five" stylings of the Blomfield family, Luke and Ashley, with sons Duke, 2.5 years old, and Cooper, 1.5 years old, are the perfect example of perspective: Their put-together casual looks could easily be someone else's classed up. "It was a shock. It's very casual," Ashley said of local style when she moved to Anchorage from Orange County, Calif., seven years ago. She admits she has become more practical in her clothing choices now. On Anchorage learning any lessons since last year's last-place finish: "I saw a dude in overalls and a fanny pack coming out of Fred Meyer -- jean-short overalls. I'm not sure!"
• Sophia Street, Soldotna: "Why not sport the crazy prints? I've always felt that way. You don't have to match; you just have to feel fabulous. I feel like I'm breaking every fashion rule, but I don't feel like there are fashion rules anymore," said local singer and songwriter Sophia Street. The outfit she'd picked out for her show at Crush Wine Bistro and Cellar -- polka dots, stripes and floral prints -- was true to form. For her, the worst-dressed honor knows no city limits: "Fred Meyer is the worst place ever -- the Soldotna Fred Meyer is depressing."
• Eric Van Oss, Anchorage: For a guy sporting an old college tank top and flip-flops (he said this was his after-work attire because, "you gotta cut loose in the summer"), Eric Van Oss had some specific opinions about local style: "It's definitely it's own breed. I would call it functional hippie. I think people care to a degree, but they don't want to be cold. They incorporate XtraTufs into their outfits with varying success."
Here's the deal, Anchorage: Despite your often lemming-like ways when it comes to ill-advised trends (trucker hats, pretty much anything Affliction or Ed Hardy and, I'll say it again, Crocs) or our inability to master the art of moderation with the less offensive fads (Uggs, XtraTufs and Salty Dawg Saloon hoodies), you have some things going for you.
"It's like, duh, of course we're the worst dressed. We're a city of characters. But I also think that the location doesn't make the artist. There are a bunch of fashion forward people here," local stylist Tess Weaver said when I sought her opinion.
"I will say that it does kill me a little when I see someone in Fred Meyer with SpongeBob SquarePants pajama pants," she said. "But I've also seen that everywhere: Seattle, L.A."
After all, when comments like this show up in my Facebook feed, it's worth noting that sometimes we are on equal fashion footing with our Outside counterparts: "After a two-week trip to America," a friend wrote recently after traveling to the East Coast, "I can report that people still love their Crocs."
Anchorage freelance writer Leslie Boyd writes a regular column on local shopping and style. Ideas, information or tips? Contact her at akshopgirl(at)gmail.com