Meet the experts:
Gretchen Harnick, academic department director for fashion and retail management at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh
Amy Lindquist, owner of Lindquist Fashion & Image Consulting in Minneapolis
What's your take on Western Pa.'s county inmate uniforms?
Allegheny County
Uniform: Maroon two-piece
Harnick: "It looks like a men's dress shirt. It looks like something you would go buy at Macy's. It doesn't scream inmate."
Lindquist: "They definitely tend to blend in a little more. It looks like a maintenance engineer's uniform. It's probably a little more respectful of the inmate."
Beaver County
Uniform: Blaze orange jumpsuit
Harnick: "It looks like a jersey for a sports team. It's that kind of color. ... He's got the short sleeve (shirt) under the short sleeve (uniform). That's a no-no."
Lindquist: "It seems to be a symbol of incarceration. It's a color that's going to get your attention."
Fayette County
Uniform: Black-and-white stripe jumpsuit (other colors for different floors at the jail: orange, orange and white stripes, green, green and white stripes)
Harnick: "Reminds me of the cop-caper guys in the festival where you can pretend to get locked up for a dollar. ... Your stripes should definitely match. The sleeve looks checkerboard."
Lindquist: "Seems like circa 1960s. The stripes, you think it's like South Carolina or something. I lived there, and they still have chain gangs down there. They wear that kind of thing."
Washington County
Uniform: Tomato red two-piece
Harnick: "Red is a 'look at me' kind of a color. It's kind of flashy. You want people to notice you when you're wearing red. I can't imagine a sea of red in a room. Imagine their (cafeteria)."
Lindquist: "It's a very harsh color. ... If I were shopping for a gentleman, I would never put him in that color. It definitely screams uniform of some kind."
Westmoreland County
Uniform: Navy blue two-piece
Harnick: "The navy is fine. ... The T-shirt underneath is not a good style. I don't like the collar on it, either, the v-neck. This one in particular isn't so good."
Lindquist: "In the psychology of color, blue is a very trusting color. The darker the color, the more authoritative the color."
Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
Blaze orange jumpers? Tomato red scrubs? Black-and-white stripes?
Paris Hilton thought she had it bad.
County jails in Western Pennsylvania ought to issue inmates sunglasses with their uniforms. At least protect the guards' eyes.
But practicality trumps style when it comes to inmate attire.
"I'm not Calvin Klein or anything, but it works for purposes of the facility," Washington County Jail Deputy Warden John Temas said of the bright orange, almost tomato red, uniforms inmates wear there. "They're easily identifiable."
Do the time, wear a crime, apparently.
Take Beaver County. Inmates are issued blaze orange uniforms that only a hunter could love.
At Fayette County Jail, restricted-housing inmates -- those who have caused problems -- are outfitted in black-and-white striped one-piece jumpsuits.
Think chain gang with mismatched stripes.
The jail had used two-piece uniforms that resembled doctors' scrubs. But inmates kept flushing them down the toilets, clogging the plumbing and causing a mess, Warden Larry Medlock said.
Since making the change within the past year, problems with clogged commodes have stopped, he said.
At least inmates aren't forced to wear pink underwear. An Arizona jail warden mandated that all inmates don pink panties.
Allegheny and Westmoreland counties seemingly are sympathetic to their inmates.
Allegheny County Jail has used their "county reds," as Warden Ramon Rustin called them. The maroon two-piece unis have been worn by inmates since the new jail was built in 1995, he said. Female inmates wear a lighter maroon.
Inmates at the Westmoreland County Jail look like physicians, dressed in two-piece navy blue scrubs.
Most inmate uniforms are made of cotton-polyester blends, which is cheaper and lasts longer than -- but isn't as soft as -- 100 percent cotton.
"They're in prison for a reason," said Gretchen Harnick, academic department director of fashion and retail management at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Downtown. "They shouldn't be all that comfortable."
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