SFist: Put On Your Sunday Best, San Francisco

babescanlon

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:21:05 -0800

"Lack of style" - exactly. I'm just looking for creativity and expression, and I retract the anti Burning Man part. I love anything that's creative. Today I'm wearing a dress I cobbled together myself and a huge, flat, round hat with a Dali moustach smack in the middle of it. Thanks to all of you for the comments! Babe ps Filling in shapes on scantron tests may well have been the most fulfilling experience of my scholastic years.

mcp

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:02:22 -0800

@wlynn: i don't think the authors of this post necessarily want to see more department store labels; the problem they identify is a lack of style. for some, style means (perhaps unfortunately) what's on the rack at macy's; for others, it most definitely can mean jeans, or "underground" whatever.

bluecanary

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:27:00 -0800

You might not feel like a scumbag, but how you're perceived is an entirely different story. Regardless of how people may proclaim to be "above fashion" or whatever as a way to comfort themselves over their unkempt appearance, the fact remains that we are judged by appearances. When you come to a "nice" restaurant dressed like an unkempt slob, that is all anyone sees, and that is how you will be perceived.

wlynn

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:15:39 -0800

One of the biggest reasons I moved to SF was because I was so impressed that you could go to a nice restaurant in -gasp- jeans and not feel like a scumbag. Besides.. underground fashion is always more exciting than some expensive label that can be purchased in a department store. Sex and the City fashion? Meh. I'd rather people watch on Polk Street.

Matt415

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:09:35 -0800

Why doesn't SFist have a Fashion Editor? Maybe post the elusive photo of a fashionable San Franciscan in their natural habitat, and break down their labels or lack thereof?

666

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:22:11 -0800

...Or at least that's one way to look at it. Actualy, SF has one of the best "underground" fashion senses of any city I've spent time in (which doesn't make up for the soul-draining dullness of the more universal Bay Area Look, but its something). I came across this recently: http://streetfancy.blogspot.com/ I'm not at all affiliated.

666

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:01:25 -0800

I think a culture’s fashion sense--despite the idiotic cliché that external appearances are shallow or “merely” about surfaces (as if surfaces were less revealing of reality than some “inner depth”)--reveals a lot about its unconscious. Americans imagine that they don’t NEED to look good, because professional celebrities/actors or whoever are paid to do so. Infantilized spectators, Americans are entitled to wear white/neon orange sneakers, shorts (once reserved for children under 12) and t-shirts as they passively digest the glamour of expert good-lookers. Americans (even San Franciscans) are “hard workers” with no time for unproductive pleasure (even less aesthetic pleasures). If you want to see a well-dressed person at Union Square: simply look up at one of the giant billboard advertisements and let the market gratify that desire. Also: is it just me or have others noticed that SF has a remarkably suburban sense of style for a so-called “world city”; as if the corny, homely, provincial “Bay Area” informed the city’s fashion sense rather than the other way around? Certainly that’s part of the problem: the ease with which SF allows itself to be subsumed under the Bay Area moniker rather than radiate progressive cosmopolitanism from the center. The “New York Area” is not a part of the cultural landscape of NYC, yet SF’s news sources, for example, market themselves as “Bay Area News.” SF is profoundly ill-at ease with urbanity and so everything closes at 10 pm and everyone wears ugly, frumpy sports attire as if the place were simply one more giant Bay Area suburb. Yawn.

bluecanary

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:46:55 -0800

There is no excuse for showing up to an expensive restaurant inappropriately attired and those who do so can never be defined as classy unless it's classy with a capital K.

cowsaysmeow

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:01:52 -0800

Indeed, KatyG, indeed. :)

icbalaam

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:56:46 -0800

One of those twins, I can't tell which one, stole my flowers when I was in the hospital. I still get pissed when I see those two.

KatyG

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:44:46 -0800

No, it's an excuse-cum-reason for laziness. I am a very classy broad.

bluecanary

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:40:09 -0800

I agree with Babe Scanlon 100%, and I think more restaurants should institute a dress code. I had to stand next to an idiot in Bix who was wearing khaki shorts and flip flops for god's sake. BIX!! For shame. The last time I went to hear Carol Doda perform I had three people ask "why are you dressed up?" For crying out loud, I was wearing a dress from Banana. Yeah, yeah, we're casual. WHATEVER. That's just an excuse for lack of class.

Brock Keeling

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:19:26 -0800

sheep.

dantsea

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:39:30 -0800

No.

jpn

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:30:19 -0800

@Babe Scanlon: I think that you want to move to NYC. This is casual California.

KatyG

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:25:24 -0800

@cowsaysmeow: and isn't that part of why people pour into this town, above all other cities in the state? Lack of fear of others' judgement upon one? Brock, if you start up this monthly circus, I'll have to start up a competing "how slovenly can you be?" thing.

cowsaysmeow

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:39:35 -0800

@KatyG: Not entirely sure as I haven't been to NYC since I was a kid, but I suspect you're probably right...it probably won't surprise you to learn that I wasn't exactly Ms. Popularity as a youngin' either. :]

Brock Keeling

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:35:04 -0800

because you all are SO ABOVE having to think about what you wear? bah! remember: whether you like it or not, and more importantly, you live in california, not just san francisco, west of i-5. what that comes great responsibility.

troymccluresf

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:32:22 -0800

See, I like the fact that I live somewhere where I have better things to think about.

KatyG

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:28:12 -0800

@cowsaysmeow: Maybe it is my provincialism, but I would image it would be worse in LA. Is that a shallow supposition?

anon8mizer

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:53:26 -0800

Don't blame us. Blame the damn weather! Everyday you have to be prepared to change outfit 4 times, depending the weather and depending on which neighborhood you are in. How can you dress nicely when you have to have 4 layers of clothing to lug around?

Plug1

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:52:56 -0800

or some baking soda/bleach for 4th of July.

cablecarsam

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:46:52 -0800

What? they spent all their money on hats and outfits and skipped the dental work? At least they didn't hang out in tanning booth like the other woman who spends all her money on clothes in SF. Maybe someone could get them some Crest whitestrips for Christmas?

cowsaysmeow

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:41:27 -0800

@KatyG: Same here, except replace "New York" with "LA." Socks with sandals forever, dammit!!!!

sf_bikebike

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:36:42 -0800

I once heard if you put chap stick down the side of a scantron sheet you would get all the answers correct. I found out it didn't work. uhh, the days of high school.

Plug1

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:32:24 -0800

oh man this picture of the Nob Hill Twins... ...so there is a 2nd version --brace yourself-- here. jeebus that is a nasty image to behold.

Brock Keeling

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:31:28 -0800

scantron = hee! love it. i used a non-regulation no. 2 pencil once during a CTBS test. ruined my life it did.

sf_bikebike

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:26:38 -0800

It's that Baby Scantron lady again!!!

gayexaminer

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:21:40 -0800

I'm down. Terrible dresser here, of course. But just say when and I'll do my best to help spread the word.

KatyG

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:20:44 -0800

Oh no, I think not. I did not leave NYC so that I could be hounded by the fashion police in SF.