Seattle’s fashions favor function

By Melanthia Mitchell

Associated Press

SEATTLE — Birkenstocks instead of Manolo Blahniks. Gore-Tex over fur. Seattle has traditionally shunned runway fashion for what is comfortable and practical.

So why is Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry putting together an exhibit on Seattle style — or, as it happens — lack of style?

Museum curator Mary Montgomery said the "Who, What, Wear" exhibit, which runs through Nov. 4, is an attempt to show what Seattleites — past and present — have worn and for what purpose.

The exhibit ranges historically from an 1870s party dress from a woman whose shoulders measured 12 inches across to a sea-turtle costume worn by a protestor during the 1999 World Trade Organization conference.

But the exhibit is not complete. It holds little of the clothing that defines Seattle today — khakis, flannel and sandals with socks — and can be seen on almost every restaurant patron, pedestrian or high-tech executive in the city.

"One of the things we’re interested in collecting is the clothing of everyday life and of average people," said museum executive director Leonard Garfield.

Garfield said people don’t think of their everyday wear as fashion, so they don’t donate it to the museum. That makes the casual clothes that seem to define Seattle difficult to find.

Even those ratty flannel shirts, ripped jeans and dirty hiking boots of Seattle’s grunge days are hard to find.

It seems strange that what is in such high-fashion isn’t considered fashion at all for Seattle, but Paula Fields, a free-lance wardrobe consultant from Seattle, said that is typical.

"Does anybody collect their cereal boxes?" Fields asked "No, they’re too busy eating the cereal to think about whether or not the box will be a collector’s item."

She said the same goes for the clothes Seattleites wear.

Because Seattle is a young city, Fields said people are not historically oriented. They are too busy looking toward the future.

"When you’re busy making the city, you don’t have the luxury to sit and think about your past," Fields said. "You’re too busy just doing."

But Garfield said what people are wearing today has strong ties to what they were wearing yesterday.

When comparing a mid-20th century REI hiking boot in the exhibit to one of today, Garfield said people can still see the practicality behind the design.

"There was an interest in functionality then that continues to influence our lifestyle today," Garfield said.

Ruth Rubinstein, an associate professor at New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology said the idea behind sensible clothing is the result of Seattle’s laymen history.

Seattle was a working-class city, Rubinstein said, with more people working outdoors. They wore what was comfortable, practical and warm.

Because of the work initially done around the city — logging, fishing and railroading — Rubenstein said people had to be prepared for the elements.

"The culture of Seattle was working with your body rather than your brain," Rubenstein said, adding that as more people migrated to the city they wanted to fit in and so adapted to the look even though their jobs had little to do with being outdoors.

Today, the relationship between what people do and what they wear is less defined but the idea of functional wear is still the same.

Joanne Eicher, a University of Minnesota Regents professor in design, housing and apparel, said even the grunge look developed out of a need for cheap and sensible clothing.

She said grunge is a casual style of the Northwest, but it’s a style that says "comfort, out in the woods and taking a walk." Like an "extreme example of an Eddie Bauer idea," Eicher said grunge swept through Seattle with the popularity of bands like Nirvana and singer Kurt Cobain.

It just happened that grunge was the look Seattle promoted to the country, Eicher said.

"There was an extreme movement to look disheveled," Eicher said. "But it was still just a fashion."

So from this "thrift-store fashion" came a casual attire that is accepted anywhere from the back-alley bisto to the Seattle Opera.

Fields said that’s the result of a people who oppose "decorative and embellished styles."

Just like Americans are more casual than Europeans, Seattleites are less traditional than New Yorkers.

"The culture here prides itself on functionality," Fields said. "It’s a little bit suspicious of artificial beauty."

On the Net: www.seattlehistory.org/