How the T-Shirt Built the Town

An Excerpt from The Seaside Style® Coffee-Table Book

By Jordan Staggs | Photography courtesy of SEASIDE®

Since Seaside, Florida’s inception, cofounder and visionary Daryl Rose Davis has nurtured and refined the idea of the Seaside style, extending it from the choice of signature colors to interior design and clothing. Her stores epitomize this idea. It’s the luxury of simplicity. The comfortable elegance of cotton sundresses and sun-bleached straw hats. Screened porches and white picket fences. The taste of fresh crabs caught at the water’s edge. This is The Seaside Style®. Now an adjective for architecture, interior design, fashion, and food, The Seaside Style® is about more than design. It is a way of life.

In 1992, Robert decided he did not want to be in the retail business and sold me L.Pizitz for one dollar,” Daryl says, referring to her husband and town cofounder/visionary, Robert S. Davis. “I incorporated it into my Seaside Associated Stores (SAS) corporation, and I was now the owner of two boutique businesses in Seaside, with Per•spi•cas•ity being the first. Erica came to work with me as the general manager of SAS. Over the following thirty years, we opened many businesses in Seaside to seed the community and create excitement and energy. We had Sue Vaneers, Papyrus, 4Kids, Seaside Transit Authority, Pedals and Petals, and Sue Vaneers Express.”

Some of the businesses worked, and some were too early for their time. The visionaries focused on the ones that were working by fine-tuning them many times over the years.

“Erica Pierce and I worked extremely well together,” Daryl continues. “We were both creative in complementary ways, and she was able to take my ideas and bring them to fruition. She had great people skills, and we saw eye to eye on the company’s ethos. I wanted SAS to be a place where I could empower women to learn about business by teaching them different skill sets. I wanted them to be able to support themselves and their families, feel good about themselves and their accomplishments, and be able to put money aside for a rainy day. Paying a fair wage was always important to me, as was rewarding accomplishments.”

Today, visitors travel to Seaside to purchase merchandise bearing the simple logo that Daryl first drafted back in 1981. How did that fated staff T-shirt grow into such an icon and widely coveted lifestyle collection?

The Seaside Style® Is Born

“Merchandising the sixty-four-square-foot Per•spi•cas•ity huts was always a nightmare due to the challenges of limited space,” Daryl says. “We set up tables and benches and brought merchandise out into the courtyard but were still limited by the weather and humidity. The Florida sunshine was brutal on the clothes, and the only way to ensure they remained in good condition was to sell them quickly.”

It was Erica who first thought of displaying the merchandise of Per•spi•cas•ity and fixtures of L.Pizitz and the other Seaside Associated Stores in alignment with each other, bringing them closer through a cohesive look even though they remained separate retail outlets. This tightening of look and feel across all SAS retailers further cemented the town itself as not only a look but a lifestyle.

“Erica was onto something by bringing all five of the businesses I owned at the time under one umbrella,” says Daryl. “That collective became known as The Seaside Style®. It was a brilliant idea of hers, and it is the moniker we still use.”

While the local housing market was growing, Seaside logo merchandise became sought-after commodities for the thousands who visited the town each year. Sue Vaneers grew up and became known as Seaside Classic, the home of the original “new town, old ways” T-shirt. But as shoppers created more demand for new Seaside items, the collection further evolved into The Seaside Style® as it is known today.

In 2017, Pizitz Home & Cottage merged with Seaside Classic into The Seaside Style® flagship store. The new concept features the “best of the best” from each of the former stores, fulfilling a longtime vision for Daryl. “We know that Seaside inspires our guests in all aspects of life,” she reflects. “Everyone who experiences our town becomes a ‘Seasider’ for life. Not only do our visitors want to dress the part, but they also want to live the part, even after they return home.” This perfectly reflects the ethos of The Seaside Style® and the town of Seaside.

Still, the SEASIDE® logo T-shirt hit its stride as a bestseller from the start, and it only skyrocketed from there. Today, many visitors can’t leave town without a T-shirt, sweatshirt, or baseball cap from The Seaside Style® or one of its associated stores. Whether tourists are heading back to Alabama or Alberta, Canada, the T-shirt is a souvenir of the good times they had. But it’s more than just a reminder and has become popular among all ages—even children under ten seem to know and appreciate that there’s something undeniably cool about the simple, timeless, classic style. Recognizing a fellow Seasider outside Northwest Florida by their emblazoned apparel lends to a special bond and camaraderie that has elevated the Seaside lifestyle to something more.

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To purchase your copy of The Seaside Style® coffee-table book, published by The Idea Boutique®, visit TheSeasideStyle.com or stop by The Seaside Style® flagship store in Seaside, Florida.