Local News

Seattle Times news librarian Gene Balk crunches the numbers

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Jeans on a job interview?  Birkenstocks to Benaroya Hall?  Shorts at the office?  No problem.  This is Seattle, after all.  When it comes to clothing, the concept of “too casual” doesn’t seem to exist here.

If you’ve lived in this city for any length of time, you know what I’m talking about.   Seattleites insist on being comfortable, no matter the occasion.

Have you ever wondered if Seattle could be the country’s most dressed-down city?

Recent data suggest that this just may be the case.  When deciding on clothing purchases, Seattleites prioritize comfort more than anyone else in America.  In surveys taken during 2011 and 2012, 57.5 percent of Seattleites said they “agree completely” that comfort is a top consideration for them when making fashion purchases.  That ranks Seattle No. 1 among 50 major U.S. cities.

And a mere 6.2 percent of Seattleites “disagree completely” that comfort is a high priority when buying clothes — dead last among the cities surveyed.  Washington, D.C. is at the opposite end of the spectrum from us.  Folks in our nation’s capital are the most willing to suck it up in the name of style.  In D.C., the percentage of clothes shoppers who don’t care at all about comfort is nearly triple that of Seattle’s.

How accurate is this data?  Let’s conduct our own survey and see how it compares.  Tell us what you value more in your clothing — comfort or style.  Take the poll, and feel free to sound off in the comments.

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