Ongoing History Daily: Eddie Vedder, fashion icon

When Eddie Vedder flew up to Seattle from San Diego to join the band in the fall of 1990, he didn’t have the proper clothes.  After all, he was a surfer dude.  Why would he have any winter clothes? 

Stone Gossard took pity on Eddie and gave him a jacket that he picked up at a thrift store.  That jacket is long gone, but Eddie had it long enough that there were a few pictures taken of him wearing it.  One of those pictures caught the eye of Perry Ellis, the fashion design house. 

In the spring of 1993, Perry Ellis issued a line of designer grunge wear and part of the line was a brown jacket just like the one Stone had given Eddie.   The only difference was that the original jacket was worth a couple of bucks; the Perry Ellis version had a retail price of $1500.  Is it any wonder that grunge fashion died out so quickly?

If you missed yesterday’s post about Foo Fighters guitarist Pat Smear, go here.