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36. Portland
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."”Taimur Khan
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http://www.gq.com/style/fashion/2011...#ixzz1RrTDVocI
