The Cosby Effect

Andrew Coates and his father, Peter, are drinking beer and watching basketball in Andrew's cluttered Lake Union condominium at approximately 9:30 on a Friday night. Both men are wearing garish, multicolored cable-knit sweaters, known in pop culture parlance as "Cosby sweaters"— so named for the famous comedian and his eponymous 1980s sitcom. On the dining room table are a half-dozen more, which Andrew's friends—among them soccer star Kevin Sakuda

of the Seattle Sounders—will eventually slip on before heading to the Del Rey in Belltown for a night out.

Twenty-five-year-old Andrew claims Belltown is the best place to don Cosby sweaters because the clientele there is more uptight and fashion-conscious than in other areas of town. Whereas Coates and his posse might get a smattering of startled looks were they to walk into a neighborhood pub in, say, Wallingford, at the Del Rey, they're viewed as circus freaks—an element Andrew is fully conscious of as he and his crew form a dance circle toward the back of the bar as it begins to fill.

The dance circle's rules are relatively simple: One person does a single dance move, which is emulated by the next person in the circle, who follows said mimicry by adding a move of his or her own. This proceeds until someone cannot properly perform, in sequence, however many moves have just been executed. If the Del Rey is a pint of Guinness, then Coates and his crew are the shot of booze seeking to turn it into an Irish Car Bomb.

"Did you guys plan this?" asks one curious onlooker. "No," replies Andrew. He's lying: Wearing Cosby sweaters out on the town has become part of the 6-foot 8-inch former Ivy League basketball player's regular weekend arsenal.

"They're a social magnet," he says. "People either ask me whether I really like the sweater or tell me it's hilarious."

Then there are the clubgoers who let Coates know just how much they hate what he's wearing. "I like it when people get upset," says Coates, the sort of person who will cheerfully cop to enjoying the hell out of dueling piano bars. "It's asinine to me that what I'm wearing could be offensive to them. I don't take myself seriously, and I find it funny when people take themselves seriously. I just want to lighten everybody's mood. [The Cosby sweater] is a great icebreaker, but it's also, 'Hey, I don't take myself too seriously, and neither should you.'"

Me? I hate sweaters. I consider them to be a totally impractical garment in a climate as mild as Seattle's. When I get a sweater for Christmas, as I inevitably do, it is shuttled in short order to the Union Gospel Mission, tags and all, where some poor fellow who sleeps on the sidewalk might actually wear it in lieu of a suitable nighttime blanket.

Yet on this night in Belltown, I've agreed to walk a mile in one of Peter Coates' sweaters, a mock turtleneck with a purplish palette from the high-end Australian manufacturer Coogi (a lone Coogi sweater can retail for upward of $400). Its pattern can best be described as a grotesque play on retro– video game chic: It looks as though Ms. Pac-Man ate all the fruit in her maze and then puked it back up on my chest. As I take a solo lap around the Del Rey, all eyes focused a short distance beneath my neckline, I begin to experience what Drew Daniel of the San Francisco–based electronic music outfit Matmos considers the Cosby sweater aficionado's chief esoteric attribute: "the thrill of the perverse."

On Oct. 21, about a half-mile south of the Del Rey, Matmos took the stage at Seattle's Triple Door nightclub. Acclaimed for their collaborations with the eccentric Icelandic pop singer Björk, the band is fronted by Daniel and Martin Schmidt, who hates Cosby sweaters. Daniel, meanwhile, has come to embrace them, which explained the ultracheesy, bejeweled piece of knitwear he wore throughout that night's performance. ("He just likes ugly stuff," says Schmidt of his partner. "It possibly explains his enduring love of me.")

"I rock a slightly femmier, African-American secretary type of sweater," says Daniel, who, like many enthusiasts, broadly defines the Cosby sweater to include just about any crewneck number with an inordinate amount of graphic flair (a classification that includes Christmas sweaters). "I like the bedazzled ones that have jewels and gems on them. It's a little faggier. Our guitarist, Nate, was also rocking one onstage. It didn't make him look like a drag queen—it made him look like a wizard.

"[People] feel like they have to say something. Even if you're on a bus, people are like, 'nice sweater, man.' They're certainly eye-catching, and I guess maybe troubling. It doesn't scan as punk rock or metal. It's kind of unto itself. It's not right for me: I have a Mohawk at the moment. But I'm 35, and I don't want to be dressed like Fall Out Boy onstage. The Huxtable position is easier for folks in their 30s."