DC is a major metropolitan area. Its suburbs consistently top the list of highest incomes in the country. It's a power town built on networking and deal brokering. It is also where style comes to die.
Sure, there are a few well-dressed elite. And of course Michelle Obama also looks impeccable and impossibly well put together. But this town has a lot of the fashion equivalent of unwashed masses.
Even the more well dressed among Washingtonians don't venture out of the conservative comfortability of Ann Taylor or Brook's Brothers. They may be boring, but they aren't embarrassing.
The vast majority of the area's inhabitants couldn't pull a coordinated look together if you threatened to throw their Blackberry into the Potomac (the DC equivalent of holding a gun to someone's head). There are ill-fitting suits every where (women doing their best impression of Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl and men who look like boys trying to wear daddy's hand me downs), sweat or track suits are not uncommon in an office in DC, and more 80s and 90s fashion on the Metro than one sees during a John Hughes movie marathon.
What is it about this town that makes people so averse to good taste? You would think a city that runs on superficial BS would be more, well, superficial. People joke that DC is Los Angeles for ugly people. I think it's more like New York for the poorly heeled.
What a delightful read first thing out of the sweat box that is DC. My thing is that I can turn my eye away from the clothes-challenged crew, but those that match their lack of creative dressing with poor or little hygiene put all five senses on alert. They also ignite my avoidance gene: I cross the street at that point to keep from LOL'ing directly in their line of sight.
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