The Slice: Stylin’ in Spokane

All kidding aside.

Why do Spokane-area men dress the way they do?

I have a few theories.

Western heritage.

Leisure-worshipping ethic.

Blue collar/no neckties tradition.

And those are just local themes. National trends also play a role, of course. You know, dot-com casual’s erosion of the starched corporate look, baby boomers refusing to grow up, and so on.

All of that can be debated. But one thing is certain. Quite a few people around here do not think Spokane men dress well.

I’ve been hearing it for years, especially when the weather warms up.

So I asked 70 Slice contributors “What word or words come to mind when you hear or read the phrase ‘men’s fashions in Spokane’?”

Here is a representative sampling of the responses.

“A ball cap for every outfit.”

“T-shirts and jeans.”

“We’ve lost our sense of occasion.”

“That’s an oxymoron.”

“Socks and sandals. Yuck.”

“Countrified casual.”

“Sloppy.”

“Boots.”

“Eclectic.”

“Depends on the man.”

“Flannel shirts.”

“Dated.”

“Butt crack.”

“Thrift shop rejects.”

“I envision a full-page Macy’s ad in the newspaper featuring neat-looking men’s suits that the men in my family do not buy.”

Clearly, we’ve got some self-image issues.

The other day I was standing with Gary Anderson in his handsome River Park Square store, Anderson & Emami Clothiers. We were looking out the window at pedestrian traffic along Main. And he cracked a wry smile. Yes, he noted, you do see a lot of guys here wearing ball caps and sweatshirts.

But he and his partner have made it selling suits and upscale apparel in downtown Spokane for 20 years because they know something: Generalizations don’t describe everybody here.

“There are a lot of guys in Spokane who like to dress very well,” he said. “They want the best quality and best tailoring and they want to look great in their clothes.”

Some of those men fly off to meetings in San Francisco or Chicago. They can’t afford to look like they just fell off a lentils truck.

Anderson, who grew up in Billings and worked in Seattle, isn’t in denial. “We’re probably not the best-dressed town in America.”

But he sees Spokane’s overall sartorial style as reflecting broader regional tendencies toward comfort-emphasizing attire. “I think it’s more a Northwest thing.”

When Spokane clothier David Hamer closed his doors a few years ago, I wondered if he was simply fed up with trying to sell dress-up clothes in a dress-down town.

So, the other day, I asked him.

Nah, he answered. That wasn’t it.

Like Anderson, Hamer said Spokane is influenced by a relaxed, Western attitude about clothes. Plus, it’s worth remembering that this isn’t a big city. “We’re rural by nature,” he said.

Still, he’s not a big fan of the ultra-casual look. He fears that it contributes to some men around here losing sight of a buttoned-down fact of life: “Appearance makes a difference.”

But is that also true in a larger, civic sense?

I asked Rich Hadley if the way men dress here has an impact on Spokane’s image. Do outsiders view us as a bunch of hicks in scuffed shoes, too-tight shirts and too-short pants?

Hadley, president/CEO of the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce, said he didn’t think so. “In business circles, people are still dressing professionally, usually with a coat and tie,” he said.

Stores keep selling Esquire and GQ in Spokane. Someone must be buying those magazines and reading about the brave new world beyond khakis.

Of course, we all know gainfully employed guys who repudiate the coat-and-tie look, who assume that it is the uniform of uptight, uninspired sissies.

And perhaps you’ve heard it said that the way to locate the out-of-town airport gate with the flight to Spokane is to look for the guys dressed for a backyard cookout. Or that the now-fading Casual Friday was always redundant here.

But Washington State University’s Carol Salusso said men who dress for work or even quasi-formal social occasions as if they were going for a hike are kidding themselves if they view this as proof that they are nonconformists or rugged individualists. In fact, she said, they are simply adhering to a tweaked set of rules.

“It’s a different dress code, but it’s still a dress code,” said Salusso, a specialist in apparel merchandising and design.

Now obviously, any discussion of the way men dress in Spokane comes crammed with a closet full of variables.

For one thing, the same man can dress in various ways on different days and for different occasions.

Occupations sometimes dictate the choices. And you wouldn’t expect one generation to mirror the next.

So who gets the last word? Photographer Holly Pickett and I hit the street to talk to some real Spokane guys.

“I dress however I feel,” said Russell Bercier, a 51-year-old body shop employee wearing a leather jacket over a red shirt. “I go my own way.”

Bob Lemley, a 34-year-old systems analyst wearing a yellow tie with a blue shirt, described his sense of style. “I have none,” he said. “That’s why I’m married. My wife picks things out for me.”

Michael Swatzell, a 22-year-old bartender wearing a contemporary shirt with rolled-up sleeves, said he likes to shop for clothes. But he assumes it takes a while for trendy looks to make it to Spokane.

Jordan Earnest, a 20-year-old employee of a jewelry-supply wholesaler in eye-catching knee socks, said he goes for a look that’s clean yet slightly funky. “It depends on how I feel that day.”

Holly and I saw one man near the Davenport Hotel who looked so sharp in his expensive suit that we practically ran after him.

“I think men’s fashions in Spokane are getting better,” said Thomas Kim, a 33-year-old annuities salesman who, it turned out, lives in Seattle. “I think the way guys here dress — guys I deal with anyway — is comparable to what you would see in Seattle.”

“Today’s Slice question: What do you think of the way women dress in the Inland Northwest?