The Dress Code 2010: The Best of the Good, Bad and Ugly

In fashion, we tend to look ahead more often than we reflect. As 2010 comes to a close, the Dress Code gets introspective and stuff and counts down our favorite "goods", "bads" and "uglies" of the year.

Our favorite "goods":

Have you noticed that we like to cover weird shit? Remember when we covered the Belltown Betty Pageant, featuring reenactments of Second Avenue sex scenes out of hand-crafted sock puppets and Gary GloryHole's head costume with miniature hands, feet and drooping ball sac? Yeah, that was weird. And lest we forget other 2010 goodness: pasties and glitterful costumes of the burlesque world, Bollywood, and who could forget the adorable Bunka girls from Japan? But we also featured a few normal things.

Here's three cheers for the "good" in 2010:
Our badass, super exclusive interview with the frickin' costume designer of AMC's Mad Men, holy shit, that was awesome!

Innovative, bold, fashion-forward, yet accessible fashions of Blackbird.

And we always love a brand, spankin' new product launch, especially from a Seattle-based company. Our favorite new product in 2010 was Ben Bridge's fragrance: FLAWLESS.

Our favorite "bad":

Ohhhh, the bads. There were bad(ass) "bads", naughty "bad" ones, campy "bads" and actual, not-so-awesome bads. We love them all, but our top "bad" features were:

Rock and roller "bad" at the Rockabilly Ball

Our "Inked" bad at the Tattoo Expo

And these "Pit Fighter" shoes spotted on 3rd avenue were awesomely bad:

Our favorite "ugly":

Well, this is hard, you see, 'cause as you may have noticed, our "ugly" picks are unfortunate fashion features, rather than actual ugliness (unless we're talking about uggs, of course). We aren't just your fairweather fashion fan-- we're like that die-hard Sounders guy, all painted in green and blue, standing out in the pouring rain with unwavering loyalty and conviction despite loss after loss. Our "ugly" features are our odes to the those who tried, gave fashion a good, commendable fight, and lost-- at least for now.

Our 2010 "Ugly" picks are:

Saying "goodbye" to Seattle vintage boutique veteran, Private Screening, after being in the business for 18 years. That was a hard one.

This year, we also said goodbye to local clothier, Monica Gutweiss, and what was considered to be one of the staples of Ballard's retail community, Ella Mon.

2010 was yet another tough battle for our local retail community, and thusly consumed much of our "ugly" features. We give a final lament to our fallen retail brethren of the past year, and to all the other "bads" and "goods" of the Dress Code.

See you in 2011, with our "Who & What to Watch in 2011" Dress Code!