Even Tim Gunn himself would have trouble with this challenge:  Imagine your job is to design a new look to help your patrons stand out on the streets of a good-sized city.  Your original ensemble needs to be wearable in the real world, both reasonably priced and easy to maintain.  It should be attractive, of course, yet warm in surprisingly brisk coastal weather.  Now, imagine - and this is the hard part - rain might suddenly start falling at any moment, even in the middle of August.  Well, you've just designed a challenge similar to that faced everyday by folks selling and buying clothes in the Pacific Northwest.  This is complicated by the fact that even though Seattle's beloved music festival is called "Bumbershoot," most of us still loath to be seen using an umbrella unless the weather is downright Biblical.  It's almost as if, by venturing into near-constant winter and spring drizzle bare-headed, we somehow prove it hasn't beaten us.

Of course, locals will be quick to insist it seldom pours here the way it does in other parts of the country.  The "rain" here, in fact, is usually just a glorified mist.  Tacoma receives a little over 39 inches of rain a year, but quite a lot of that falls during a handful of self-contained snowfalls in winter months.  Tacoma receives less rain per year than New York City, and there's only a 25 degree (Fahrenheit) spread between average temperatures in January and July.  Still, no designer will ever confuse our maritime climate with the fashion runways of Milan.

Consequently, most Pacific Northwesterners have adopted a relaxed, even apathetic attitude toward cutting-edge, fashion-forward styles.  Some local looks seem willfully anti-fashion.  Take, for example, the so-called "Utilikilt," a copyrighted garment made and marketed exclusively in Seattle.  For about $200, you, too, can be the proud owner of a rugged, multi-pocketed two-foot skirt for men.  Granted, Utilikilt's literature rigorously avoids the word "skirt," but all cautious marketing aside, you'll be wearing a man-skirt in public ... not that there's anything wrong with that.

Well ... yes, actually, there is.  As company Web site Utilikilts.com snarkily warns, "Safety tip:  Breeding rattlesnakes is a Bad Idea."  Luckily, it's too cool for rattlesnakes west of the Cascades, so Utilikilts can be seen on our streets with what has to be regarded as staggering frequency.

Year after year, the most ubiquitous garment in Tacoma and Olympia - for almost every demographic - is the humble hooded sweatshirt, or "hoodie."  It's about as utilitarian a fashion choice as one could possibly imagine, but designers are bowing to our inevitable need to one-up peers and poseurs by producing what they call "fashion hoodies."  After all, why spend a few bucks at Ross Dress for Less when you can sport a reversible sweatshirt from billWillie costing upwards of $1300?  After all, it looked smokin' hot on Chris Brown!

Wet sidewalks likewise necessitate a rethinking of standard footwear, and that's why no woman's closet would be properly stocked without funky-but-functional rain boots.  Harder to explain in our natural wonderland of inescapable puddles is Olympia's still-raging love affair with Birkenstock sandals on men, often in close proximity to a damp Hacky Sack.

The Weekly Volcano polled its readers for the "Best of Tacoma 2010" issue, and the "Best Place to Buy Vintage Clothing" turned out to be a tie between urbanXchange on Pacific Avenue and Vanity Fashion Boutique on 6th Avenue.  For shoes, check out Vixens on 6th Avenue or the Volcano‘s winner, Nordstrom.  We stopped into urbanXchange to get a comment for this story, but even on a Tuesday afternoon in the thick of the recession, the store was as busy as the men's room at Paddy Coyne's Irish Pub.  I was told that's par for the course.  So for all our supposed disregard of haute couture, finding the right look for you might just require besting competitive shoppers in a slap fight among the racks.