Gucci and Versace parade down the runway each season. From this mythical land, the fashion czars maintain, the latest brainchildren of fashion's elite slowly trickle their way to New York City, and from there begin the slow, agonizing crawl through the aesthetic wasteland of the American Midwest, finally to arrive, tattered and gasping, upon the doorstep of the West Coast. This industry would have you think that true fashion is far beyond your reach. Seattle's strength as a world power of fashion lies in Seattleites' understanding of the fundamental difference between fashion and style.
Fashion is designed to keep insecure mall rats enslaved to the fashion industry.
Style, on the other hand, gets you laid. You can't lift a rock in New York or L.A. without finding some hairdresser with an overgenerous sugar daddy swathed head to toe in Prada, trying desperately to impress someone. But if any authentic Seattle hipster actually came across a Prada shirt, they would probably tear it, dye it, and douse it in Jack Daniel's before even dreaming of putting it on. Wearing a shirt that looks like someone just used it to wipe up after a gangbang is the surest road to fashion success. The greatest fashion faux pas one can make in Seattle this season is wearing clothes that fit.