Sunday Comment: Why is Alaska Bearly Fashionable?

November 29, 2009: Sorry my blogosphere friends, but the only thing close to an apricot scarf has ever been seen at an Alaskan party is when dried fruit mix is dropped down the front of someone's shirt. 

And so it goes. 

In Alaska it seems men have a long history of fashion aversion. Alaskan men don't cotton to those outside fancy pants fashionistas. Alaskan men fancy themselves as Don Quixotes more than Don Drapers.  

J Crew? Spend a week crewing on a crab boat in the Bering Sea. Kenneth Cole? Get a job at the Usibelli coal mine. And Banana Republic? Good luck trying to find a decent banana in this state and what the hell kind of sissy are you anyway for eating fresh fruit

Sure there are the exceptions, but in Alaska most men are rugged individualists.

We like our sweat pants, our big boots and our heavy parkas.

We take pride in parading around public places in our over sized sports jerseys (who knew so many Brett Favres lived in Alaska) and the closest thing to fine footwear in our closets are represented by the pair of least scuffed tennis shoes.

But there is more to the story than just rugged individualism.

Last year, Elise Patkotak wrote a hilarious blog about traveling to and from Alaska. She recognized that the further East she went on the airline route map, the more she felt out of place with her fashion sense but on the flip side she knew when she was getting closer to home from the warm feeling she received by like dressed individuals.

"As I travel back to Alaska, I immediately know when I’m getting close to home because suddenly everyone is dressed like me. I am back among my people, the ones who understand that boots are more than a fashion statement and should always be preceded by the word “bunny”. And that coats that don’t come with a hood, ruff and zip in liner are simply not coats. And that mittens can come with ears and eyes and not be viewed askance." ElisePatkotak.com 12/18/08

While practicality and function ability do play a role in the fashion choices we make, we're not all commercial fisherman plying our craft in 15 foot swells, electrical linemen trying to reconnect our neighbors to the grid in freezing temperatures or roughnecks who just got off shift from the North Slope. 

I know, details...details.

The one glaring example of people perpetuating the silly notion that in order to be a real Alaskan you have to commit to being lost in the Bermuda triangle of fashion, are some of the very people who ask us to trust them; politicians.

Over the last two weeks, a couple of my favorite Alaskan writers have highlighted this phenomena: Maia Nolan at the Alaska Dispatch and Julia O'Malley at the Anchorage Daily News.

Nolan penned a column earlier in the month about two candidates for governor, Ethan Berkowitz and Bob Poe trying to "out Alaska" each other with their campaign money shots.

"Looks like the "who's Alaskan now?" gauntlet has been thrown down. Last week, Ethan in Carhartts. This week, Bob with his sled dog. Next week, Sen. Hollis French astride a snowmachine while stirring mooseburger chili or scaling an ice face with an eagle soaring in the background?" Nolan asked.

Yesterday, O'Malley wrote about the narcotic like addiction with politicos and their Carhartts come election season.

"The Carhartt jacket is never an accident in Alaska politics. It's a device. An everyman costume. Once in a while a city politician pulls one out to seem authentic to people off the road system," she brilliantly observed.

Bravo sisters...a bloody well deserved bravo!

Why is it in a state that screams rugged individualism, our politicos are like fashion lemmings? It would be nice if just one of these "everyman" would say they prefer a Navy blazer to a Chevrolet Blazer.

This shaded view point I've adopted hasn't come about recently. 

I grew up in Alaska. Before oil, before live football games aired on Sundays and heaven forbid before Permanent Fund Dividend checks littered our mail boxes. I learned to ride a bike when Tudor Road was still a two lane dirt highway and a trek to the Qwik Stop at Lake Otis and Tudor to procure the sacred watermelon Big Buddy gum stick was the equivalent of traversing the Klondike trail.

In fact I've lived in Alaska longer than most every single politician currently seeking political office in this state...and I've never, never owned a pair of bunny boots or Carhartts.

A few years ago during a gubernatorial debate, one of my opponents said she'd like to dress me in Carhartts and Xtratuffs.

Thanks but no thanks I immediately thought. I spent my entire teenage life washing and de-icing rental cars in the most unfriendly weather conditions known to man and survived just fine without them.

Call it a badge of honor.

When I was young I was at the fashion mercy of my parental providers which included more than my fair share of various colored Sears Toughskins outfits and Nike knock offs.

Growing up my three older sisters always had great fashion taste but they also possessed economic independence. 

So the minute I cashed my first paycheck as a car washer at First Federal Savings & Loan, I entered into a realm where I could control my own sartorial splendor and no longer be subjected to the fashion dictates of others. In doing so I forever walked away from the chains that seem to bind today's politicos who are trying so hard to prove their Alaska gravitas. 

You want Alaska gravitas; spend a day at fifteen digging Ford Granadas out of a foot of snow at the Anchorage Airport in five degree weather. Trust me, it has nothing to do with the brand of jacket you're wearing.

The result was that I grew to love Cole Haan instead of Cabella, I'd rather own a Hugo Boss than an Arctic Cat and the Brooks Range doesn't hold the same appeal as Brooks Brothers.    

And while Elise Patkotak's observation about fashion comfort being determined by the ratio of distance from home, my predicament is that it applies in the inverse. The further East I travel in the country, the more comfortable I feel in my own clothes.

Frightening as it may seem, sometimes I have to get all the way to Chicago before I can find myself seated in the same aisle as another brother who is wearing a sport coat that doesn't have the word Packers emblazoned on it.   

It's far from snobbish let me assure you.

Judging from my life as a "real Alaskan," how long I've lived in this state and how many miles I've logged from one end of the state to the other for both business and politics, I've more than earned the right to wear my loafers in the winter without those annoying rubber cover thingies.

The bottom line; for a state that screams, preaches and promotes individualism, why do we insist on all looking the same?

Now if you'll excuse me, this talk about over sized sports jerseys is bringing back flashbacks of arguments with my Mom about how buying a pair of Hash jeans will not cause her only son to become a international drug lord. 

I need to grab an eggnog latte stat and pay a visit to my therapist; Andre at Andre's.