On a recent day in Portland, a downtown receptionist wore a

pin over her business attire. A grocery store shopper rocked a

tattoo, and a young man rode the bus in his

hoodie.

Geekery has become a fashion statement, and offbeat Portland is supplying a bulk of do-it-yourself designers whose jewelry, apparel and accessories are winning fans from North Portland to the Middle East.

A click of the

yields everything from

, to

, to

from the Super Mario Bros. video games.

The list goes on for 1,250 pages, spanning genres from books to video games, from tech to indie movies and TV.

"More people are learning geeks like a lot of really fun stuff, and are following suit in their everyday lives," says Jill Pantozzi, an editor at

, a geek-themed site for women that attracts more than 800,000 visitors each day

It's hard to define what qualifies as geek chic, but the consensus among self-described geeks is that it's hyperfandom of almost anything, barring interests such as celebrity gossip, sports, culinary arts or knitting, which would put you in the categories of pop culturists, jocks, foodies and crafters.

"Portland is just such an awesome place for geekiness in general," says Susan Beal, a Portlander who wrote the book on geeky creations,

In it, Beal and a team of local designers teach the reader to make everything from nerdy necklaces to sci-fi tote bags.

Unlike the geeks of yore, who downplayed their interests in public to avoid ridicule, today's geek is a fashion icon.

How it happened is a familiar story. When the Internet came of age, those nerdy programmers became the new standard of power and influence. Instead of getting swirlies in the bathroom stall, geeks were driving nice cars and getting the girls. They were cool, and with the stigma gone, a sense of pride emerged.

"The generation of

has grown up and broken into various areas of pop culture," says Amanda Emerson, who makes geek-themed jewelry from her Gladstone home and sells it to customers around the globe on Etsy.

Much like your sports-nut friends who wipe their mouths with Miami Heat napkins, geeks began finding ways to express their personal interests through style.

But it soon became apparent that girl fans didn't necessarily want to wear an oversize men's T-shirt to express their fandom. So, the fans became the suppliers of geeky jewelry, accessories and women's attire.

In Portland, Emerson and other crafty locals have taken to the Internet to make money off their designs, recognizing a void where major retailers failed to deliver.

"It's definitely a place people go because they can find the geeky stuff you can't get anywhere else," says Alex Wrekk, a longtime fanzine writer and gamer who incorporated the theme into her button-making business,

Wrekk began selling buttons stamped with well-known Dungeons & Dragons lingo in her Northeast Killingsworth Street store and online. She incorporates similar fan fashion in her own wardrobe.

"I made my own cloak to wear when it's cold," she says.

Movie adaptations of formerly geeky pop culture phenomena had a hand in the rise of geeky products, too, Emerson says. When half the nation has idolized

, who's going to knock a comic book junkie for sporting her love of the comic series on her ears?

The same is true of book nerds who sport

books or Harry Potter lovers who pair their outfits with a red and yellow scarf.

"At some point, you didn't want people to know you did geeky things," Wrekk says. "But now (fashion) is a way to identify each other."

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