There is nothing more aesthetically pleasing to a San Franciscan than plaid. Whether worn as a dress, shirt, headband, kilt, back brace or retainer, alternating bands of colored thread woven at right angles to each other, are San Franciscans’ way of letting us know that they have arrived at a place called Fashion.
If you have ever seen the mixture of ferocity and love that oozes from San Franciscans’ eye sockets when they stare at their plaided brethren, then you would probably assume like they do that on the seventh day God did not rest, he wore plaid.
Plaid makes people crazy. Crazy in love. Which is exactly how Beyonce phrased it when she wrote a song about San Franciscans’ love for plaid. Then she was so inspired by her own beautiful lyrics, and by the fact that Jay-Z made an appearance in her music video, that she decided to make Dreamgirls and finally to marry Jay-Z.
So, without San Franciscans’ total tartan obsession Beyonce and Jay-Z might still be living in sin aboard their 30,000 square foot yacht anchored somewhere on their private sea, which used to be called The Mediterranean.
San Franciscans love plaid so much that it has actually become a type, as in “My type is brown-haired investment bankers, and dudes in plaid.” At least all this plaid makes it very easy to get dressed in the morning after a plaid fueled hook-up. Is that your shirt or mine? Who cares, it’s the same shirt!
The level of simplicity that a city of plaids creates is getting so close to Zen that it would be scary if everyone didn’t look so freaking hot all the time. That ‘hot’ is figurative and literal, because there’s nothing like a hillside of plaids in Dolores Park to make people understand why you shouldn’t wear flannel in 80 degree weather.
People like to walk into bars and play condescending little games like, How Many Plaids Can I Count, but really they’re counting to see if they even want to stay there, because a room with too many non-plaids is a very unattractive room indeed. At Hemlock these people have no problem, because it’s an open secret that the doorman hands out complimentary plaid shirts to anyone who forgets to wear their own. As of this writing, he has yet to have to give one away.
Photo: Fashionist
