SPECIAL REPORT: FASHION IN PEBA – Who’s a cut above the rest?

by John Kramer (Exclusive)

After finishing the shooting of the final episodes of this season’s “Make it Work” fashion designer and teacher John Kramer was asked to grade the uniforms of the PEBA, in honor of Sue Beckley possibly purchasing the Charleston Statesmen. Kramer looked over each of the uniforms with FASHIONISTA and assigned each a value on a scale of 0 (dud) to 10 (dream). His EXCLUSIVE report follows below.

Charleston: 10. Red and gray is a winning combination, and everything about this screams classic. The Statesmen of the league, as well as baseball fashion. Dear Sue, don’t change a thing!!

Crystal Lake: 10. Green and white is also hard to beat. Crystal Lake goes bold with a big logo on the cap and a sleek jersey font. There are no flies to be found on this style!

Manchester: 10. Everything you need for a classic uniform. Distinctive but not too busy logo. Block M on the cap for easy recognition. Muted colors. The dark buttons at the top of the jersey are just the right bit of flair added to the perfect ensemble!

San Antonio: 9. San Antonio doesn’t run from the Calzone girl, but somehow makes her tasteful in light of the entire logo. White jersey doesn’t stray far from classic design, red trim looks good. A uniform you can be caught naked in!

Omaha: 8.5. The black Cyclone logo clashes a bit against the red hat and the jersey script is all out of whack. (The YCLONES letters are probably too small. And what are Yclones?) Otherwise a smash.

New Jersey: 8. You have to admire the row of buttons down the left side of the jersey and the trim contrasts wonderfully with the main jersey color. Points off for the “H” logo – the logos of the Hitmen are very gaudy – but the rest of the uniform offsets the traditional New Jersey in-your-face brashness.

Duluth: 7. The uniform would be wonderful if the shade of green were just a touch darker. Unfortunately, this dispassionate combination of white and green-veering-towards-white just doesn’t shout “warrior.” Pinstripes are great, but this uniform needs a bit more grrrrowl!

Fargo: 7. Fargo knows how to do Day-Glo right, knowing that you have to be careful with yellow and green. White trim around block letters doesn’t turn out tragic. I wouldn’t tinker too much with this uniform though; even a minor change could lead to fashion extinction.

Reno: 7. It’s a nice try. I’m not a fan of the shoulders being a different color than the rest of the uniform, but it’s the jersey font that does it for me: the message is “stretch past your fashion limitations.” Unfortunately, the blue on the letters seems to be slightly darker than the blue elsewhere.

Canton: 6. White or off-white? Looks a little fishy to me. The font for the logo only looks great with the graphic; against a white background it looks horribly lonely.

Gloucester: 6. The Olde English “G” is great and the cap is quite smart, but the rest of the uniform suffers from the tricolor fatigue seen too often these days. Glouchester needs to pick a color and stick with it.

West Virginia: 6: You can’t go wrong with dark blue; but you can go wrong with too much of it. The interlocked W logo on the cap is brilliant; the yellow logo across the chest is not. Not everything in West Virginia has to be blue and gold.

Aurora: 5.5: Okay, at what exactly am I looking here? Somehow, these colors do not go together. Too much blue. Go with a white jersey and it might be better. However, I adore the little white star on the right shoulder – it appears to be there for unexplained reasons, adding a bit of mystery to an otherwise average try.

Florida: 5. Oh Florida, what are we going to do with you? The logo is okay at best and that color of blue went out in the 1980’s. I supposed the F-feather logo is a better choice than the Indian chief’s head, but not by much.

Kalamazoo: 5. Tries to be a little too 1990’s precious with its blue trim. The badger should have probably been left by himself on the jersey; you would get eye strain trying to read the font that brackets his head. Perhaps he’s trying to eat his way out.

Arlington: 4: The logo might just be a little bit too big for the cap, but it’s a bold fashion decision – talk to Lacoste and Polo to find out how the larger logos pay off. However, the yellow shoulders on a white jersey are fitting for a team called the Bureaucrats – it must have been designed by committee.

Bakersfield: 4. Bears on the field, but cubs in the fashion department! Purple and brown do not mix! With that combo I can barely pay attention to the rest of the uniform. I’d rather see real bears play.

London: 4. London is usually fashion-forward, but the glow-in the dark red orange should warn anyone buying an Underground jersey to Mind the Gap. The English flag against the black cap reminds one of a Hitmen jersey; it looks like crosshairs instead.

Palm Strings: 3. When you get old, you make some strange fashion choices. Is the color of the cap flesh or oatmeal? Too great a contrast with the dark green undershirt.

Connecticut: 2. If nutmeg is a sweet spice, this uniform will give you diabetes. Too much going on here, four colors attempting to coexist unhappily on a jersey leads only to an upset stomach. The logo is dominated by that nutmeg color and becomes a blob against the black cap.

Kentucky: 2. I know that you love the stallion’s head, but it doesn’t have to be some prominent on the jersey. You’re a baseball team, not Superman. Black jersey, red pinstripes, white hat? I thought I was at Wendy’s.

Tempe: 2. Gaah! This uniform flat-out assaults you with its multitude of glowing orange! No one in Tempe will ever miss the shortstop; that color can be seen for three hundred yards! Great uniform if you’re going hunting, not so good for baseball.

New Orleans: 1. Not every trend is worth setting. The horizontal stripe is horrible and the font looks like it belongs to a bad 1970’s disco. Was that grey-brown sludge color found at the bottom of the Mississippi? I don’t know if these are ballplayers or valets.

Yuma: 1. I didn’t know you could take scraps from other uniforms and build them into a new uniform. I want to think of a bulldozer when I see Yuma’s uniform, but instead I think of the little man waving the orange flag on the road. Needs a hardhat. Orange-and-yellow might allow one to consider it a stab at Southwestern flair with a hint of Mexicana, otherwise I’d give a zero.