Yeah, we were pretty shocked, too. Who would've thought that Cardinals t-shirts and Blues caps were the height of modern fashion? (Then again, Jon Hamm has been photographed wearing a Blues cap. Ah, Jon, you give us class!) But there it is, in another one of those scientific polls we love so much, this one courtesy of Bundle.com. They promise "unbiased, data-driven ratings," so we know we can trust them, unlike those malicious East Coast snobs at the Daily Beast.
And so there we are, ranked at number 14, nestled between Fort Worth and Ft. Lauderdale. And no, there are more than 15 cities in these rankings, thankyouverymuch!
The methodology for Bundle's rankings is convoluted, as these things typically are:
We selected the 50 largest cities by population in our data set and created a fashion-conscious index, with 1.0 being average. We based our index on the percentage of "fashion-conscious households" in our sample, which we defined as households that had at least four transactions at top-end designer merchants in the past 30 months.
Really what this seems to mean is that "fashionable" people spend more money on their clothes than the unfashionable, though four designer purchases over the span of two-and-a-half years is not really that much -- if you've got the cash. (This probably means that Target doesn't count.) So it should come as no surprise that the most fashionable city in America is Irvine, California, right in the heart of Orange County. Remember The OC? Laguna Beach? Yeah, all so mid-aughts, but the folks there are still rich, and they don't have to cover up their fancy duds with puffy winter coats like the citizens of Buffalo, New York. Which, incidentally, came in last.
It should also be noted that the dropoff between first and fourteenth on this list is huge. Irvine is more than three times as fashionable as St. Louis. We're barely above the national average, to be honest, though we are one of the poorer cities at the top of the list. (The fact that St. Louis is here at all makes us suspect that Bundle interpreted "St. Louis" to mean "St. Louis metropolitan area" instead of "St. Louis City," which is what stats folks use when they're ranking cities in terms of crime and sexually-transmitted diseases.)
But come on, St. Louis, this should be impetus to move up to lucky number 13! After all, it was Macy's and Sears that closed, not Saks or Neiman Marcus! A few suggestions:
The gold thread in the newfangled Cards jersey, plus the cost, plus the fact that everybody had to replace their Pujols model, should definitely boost it up to "designer" status. That thing does carry a fancy and conspicuous label.
It's so much nicer to have a picture of a horse on your left pectoral instead of the logo of the company that sponsored your last charity golf tournament. Plus, it still goes with your khakis.
When you pay $284 for a pair of cutoffs, the shorts cease to be a ripoff and instead turn into an "investment piece." Since you don't have to do the cutting yourself, you can be totally sure the bottoms will be straight and even and the bottoms of the pockets will stick out just so. Fashion gives you confidence!
If you're going to make the ultimate sacrifice for fashion and wear tights instead of pants, please don't shame your city by wearing some nondescript pair.
There are cell phone holsters, and then there are cell phone holsters.
Bundle's full rankings after the jump.
