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Growing Up In Style is a series about the connection between fashion and local life in America, past and present.
I grew up in Ashland, a small town in Southern Oregon, where the “It bag” was the canvas tote from our local food co-op. And while later I would develop an obsession with True Religion jeans, my earliest connection with retail fashion occurred at The Ashland Outdoor Store, a shop for intrepid explorers of the area’s surrounding mountains.
We moved to Oregon from the suburbs of DC in 2001, the summer I turned 10. My parents say they wanted to find a sense of community away from the “artificial bubble” of Washington, where they had built their careers. My grandfather came up from California to construct a house a few yards away from ours on a property that was otherwise defined by oak trees and blackberry bushes. We all became outdoorsy: When we landed at the airport, Grandad swept us off to a g