Welcome to Worn Out, The Stranger's annual fashion issue.

Every other fashion issue/magazine/expert tells you what to wear. Not so with Worn Out. We aren't telling you what to wear or where to shop. We barely feel comfortable dressing ourselves, let alone other people. The editor of this issue of Worn Out happens to be wearing a fake fur coat as he types this, because his office is freezing— a fake fur along with a baseball cap, a Sonic Boom T-shirt, and rain-soaked high-tops. He looks absolutely silly, and if you could see what the rest of The Stranger's editorial department is wearing, you'd understand why we generally leave this whole fashion thing to people who actually know a thing or two about it.

In Worn Out, the fashion experts are the people of Seattle. The people you pass on the street. Your friends and neighbors. Armed with a camera, Stranger photographer Kelly O goes out in search of people who catch her eye. They're photographed on the spot, as they are, on their way to work, waiting to cross the street, shopping in the produce section at QFC. These people are the true arbiters of taste—not the people who design clothes, not the people who sell clothes, but the people who wear clothes. We've done our best to find out where all the clothes these people are wearing came from and to write about them the way that fashion writers write, but we're not so good at fashion writing. We get distracted.

Photos by Kelly O

Written by
Paul Constant
Brendan Kiley
Charles Mudede
Bryant Phillips
Eli Sanders
David Schmader
Megan Seling
Brad Steinbacher
Annie Wagner