Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Servo
What is a fashion town? Uh, the three US cities that have a large population of trend-obsessed/affluence-obsessed snobs. LA, San Fran, and NYC...
Chicago is a black jacket, jeans, and hoodie town. Period. Ride the L during rush-hour in January, and tell me this is a fashion town. You won't see couture scarfs, fashion boots, and designer coats like you will on the NYC subway; you will see, however, sensible people wearing practice clothes. The number of people that actually shop at those fucking Gold Coast stores like Barney's and Hermes and shit has got to be less than 1% of the city's population...
I've been to San Fransico and NYC many times; they have far more high end clothing shops, and you'll see large amounts of people looking like they're on a fucking fashion runway in Milan. High end fashion in Chicago is Nordstrom or Banana Republic. The only NYC-style fashion you'll see here is amongst the hipsters in Bucktown or the well-dressed dudes up on N Halsted... or something like that. But good luck finding a Ben Sherman sweater on someone at a bar in Edison Park or an H+M scarf on someone at a Sox game in April. Just saying.
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Chicago is a big city, man. You won't see many people wearing Prada to a Sox game, but you won't see many old navy sweatshirts in Alinea, either.
You can't deny that Chicago has its own style. If you walk state street during a week day, you'll see everything ranging from designer style, to innovative street style to people dressed casually. Chicago also has a robust indie designer scene that has been growing exponentially these past few years.
Just like anything in a big city, though, not everyone uses it. Not every Chicagoan is a Sox fan, and not every Chicagoan likes to shop for every different style.
From a city to city comparison, in my experience, Chicagoans are better dressed than San Franciscans. If you want evidence, look at a company like suit supply, which opened in Chicago 2 or 3 years before they even looked at SFO. Chicagoans tend to be more casual than New Yorkers, though, generally because a higher percentage in Manhattan comes from outside the city, so they are dressed for work. In Chicago, we tend to go home after work, toss on jeans and then head out for the night.
Chicago is getting on the retail radar, mostly due to the high wage service jobs downtown. You may not see people at the Ford plant rocking H&M scarves, but you'll definitely see some in Logan Square, Pilsen, Bridgeport, Wicker Park, and up the north coast. That market, along with the burbs and the tourists, are what is growing the high end retail downtown. It's the same market driver that is driving high-end apartment construction. Someone dropping $4000 a month on a two bedroom apt is likely the same person able to drop a grand at a store on a regular basis. That's not a bad thing, just a fact of city living.