I wore traditional garb every year at the Wiesn when I lived in Munich. It's cultural not political, no more than wearing large rodeo buckle in a red state is a political statement.
3
Just back from Salzburg where we experienced three days of Rupertikirtag Festival. Quite a spectacle, with thousands of locals, from toddlers to grandparents, dressed in their lederhosen and dirndls. That night at a quiet restaurant, we asked a young couple if people wear these clothes outside of festivals and they said yes, quite a bit, including the custom of "Dirndl Thursday" at work.
49
Bavaria has always been the most conservative part of Germany, so this isn't particularly surprising. We just have to watch out for the politics hidden in the pockets of the lederhosen.
87
The trend can't be that new. We were in Munich during Oktoberfest ten years ago and the dress among the young was in full swing. Indeed, we questioned a number of young people about the traditional dress and the festival. For most, it evoked a happy time in the childhood, and the tradition marked them as uniquely Bavarian. Prosit!
68
Wearing traditional Bavarian clothes is not new in Bavaria, and is not reserved for Oktoberfest or discos. My grandparents wore them, my mother and her siblings wore them, and my cousins and I wore them, often for formal occasions. My aunt wore her formal dirndl in her wedding in 1973, and again for a big birthday in 2010.
45
Having lived in Munich for the last 6 years until a few months ago I assure you that wearing a Dirndl or Lederhosen does not have any political connotation for those at the Wiesn. Having hosted visitors from both the US and around Europe during Oktoberfest, the first thing they'd want to do is head to Angermaier and buy their "man or woman package," which is a basic version of the traditional wear. It really is just the cool thing to do now, not to mention it looks fantastic on all kinds of body types. And it's not only millennials wearing Tracht, it's all ages from babies to the Omas and Opas-Aussies, Europeans, Americans etc.
48
Except perhaps for seeing the girls in their dirndls, I prefer to get my German culture at the Matterhorn in Disneyland. Or maybe it's Swiss. In any case it's a dang good time, and without all the drunken Germans--or Swiss for that matter.
2
“This traditional dress is not political.”
Protesting too much.
BTW it’s all political. Let’s not be naive.
16
No, you‘re wrong - and I‘ve lived here for over 35 years.
9
Dirndles are far more fetching and practical than the hijab, another form of dress that proudly connects women to culture and identity.
26
Growing up in a wealthy conservative town and attending an essentially all white high school, I judged people for how they dresses as if it was their defining characteristic (embarrasing how preppy I was). It was not until I was able to see outside my own narrow mindedness that I understood the way people dress does not project the connotations that I want to interpret. Quite often, clothes reflect one's need for an identity or just as a way of fitting in with their peers. Not all that different from the cars we purchase as we get older.
7
Black Bavarians started wearing the dirndl too apparently, which would be unlikely if there was a nationalist/xenophobic stigma attached to wearing them.
http://www.nicoleisthenewblack.com/2011/09/oktoberfest-2011-black-girls-...
12
Well the return of the waistline and wearable dresses might feel pretty special to millennials. Their grandmothers still look terrific in old pictures in their skirts and fashion is always from the street up isnt it. Even my generation wears droopy pants and tattoos that were prison wear a couple of decades ago.
Some people are always going to try to exclude others and look for some sense of community without doing any of the work to produce a community- the red caps Trump makes in China while hollering in Kentucky or Idaho about "globalists" comes to mind. Instant "credibility" . Lol.
8
Current teenagers are not millennials. They are post-millennials or Gen Z. Someone who is 17 today was born in 2001, well after the Millennial generation cut-off as defined by the Pew Research Center, which places it at those born from 1981-1996.
23
Is there a German version of The Village People? Do some prance around on stage in lederhosen and dirndl? What are the political implications?
4
This costuming was also popular in the 1930's, a return to heimat, Deutsche volk.
6
We were in Austria in 2012 and people were wearing them there. They are very expensive! My mother's family was from Austria and my brothers wore lederhosen when they were kids. I don't know where she got them but they are probably in the basement today.
7
I notice that the young men standing outside Cafe Kosmos are all wearing a "uniform" of jeans and hoodie. How is that different than the "uniform" of dirndl/lederhosen?
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As a displaced Bavarian & heirloom Lederhosn owner and wearer, I read this article with interest. Like most minorities, Bavarians are very wary of cultural appropriation of their treasured garments by oppressive majority cultures, most notably the Preissn (Prussians, i.e. anything North of Bavaria). This is especially annoying when men with skinny sparrow-like legs think it cool to wear a Lederhosn once a year. Ironically, these Lederhosn are often stitched together in Pakistan on Afghanistan, whence for many of these folk all evil originates.
What most Bavarians and wannabe-Bavarians don't know, is that the Lederhosn itself is but a fiction. It was conceived as part of the Miesbacher Tracht in the late 19th century as part of a Bavarian identity politics that was shaped in the many Trachtenvereine (Costume Clubs) that sprung up in every village and that essentially uniformed the great diversity of garments. Before, rural clothing traditions were much more oriented on what was worn in the cities, no one would have worn leather shorts (highlight impractical in the kind of weather that prevails in Bavaria). So, like all things considered original and traditional, the Lederhosn isn's quite what it seems.
A role model for every Lederhosn fashionista should be exiled writer Oskar Maria Graf, who wore a very plain specimen as he walked the streets of NYC. https://i0.wp.com/muenchner-feuilleton.de/wp-content/uploads/graf.jpg?re...
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One of the nice things about Bavaria is that people--not just at holidays--wear local dress. For men, formal dress includes a sport jacket with Bavarian trim.
17
Yes, yes, people like to dress up in costumes. Where? Pretty much everywhere.
16
It’s not costume but historic garb
10
As an American who lived several years in Germany, I always joked that Bavarians were the German equivalent of Texans.
They both wear funny clothes (is there anything more ridiculous looking than someone wearing a cowboy hat and boots in the city?), can't imagine living anywhere else but Texas/Bavaria, are extremely proud that their states were once independent nations, tend to be more conservative/religious than their fellow citizens, and often become a stereotype for entire country (not all Americans wear cowboy hats, and not all Germans wear lederhosen).
Oh, and everybody else in the USA/Germany just rolls their eyes at them and shakes their heads...
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@Schultzie
Not sure everyone is rolling their eyes at the men in Texas who look great in jeans and a cowboy hat. But then again I grew up in Texas.
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@Schultzie
A Brooklynite shouldn't be hurling geographic stereotypes in ANY direction.
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@Schultzie
"Oh, and everybody else in the USA/Germany just rolls their eyes at them and shakes their heads..."
YES!
But when we travel to Munich or Western part of Austria - never say "Bavaria", you should never wear Dirndls in Nürnberg - to have a party all Aldi Dirndls will be sold out soon.
True Bavarians will be not amused, to put it mildly, because authentic Bavarians (Altbayern) believe in this stuff.
2
I was in Munich when the millennials might have been little kids brought - in Trachten - to Oktoberfest by their parents - also wearing traditional clothes.
The clothes are - clothes. They can be made to (and did in WWII) signify politics of the right, but don't automatically carry that.
They do represent the apparently human desire to have some group, or tribal identity. We sometimes celebrate that - diversity! and sometimes bemoan that: Blind devotion to one's group and rejection of outsiders.
13
I attended the Oktoberfest in 1980 and fortunately avoided the terrorist bomb that went off and killed several on the previous evening. At that time, there were probably more people wearing traditional dress than not. These might be embellished with a large decorated pretzel hung around the neck. I happened to price the men's outfits in a store window and found them astonishingly expensive. By the time you got the hat with a large brush and brass decorated suspenders, you could be wearing a few thousand dollars. These are not something you would want to wear every day. Even when wearing regular German clothing, store owners would take one look and address me in English. I am equal portions England and Welsh, but 6% German. I always found it sad that Americans lack the national traditions such as dress one finds in Europe. It seems a place without a defining culture, which perhaps is the reason we do not feel so threatened by immigrants as Europeans.
7
@David: I go to Europe almost every year. I am almost always addressed in the local languages, even in France.
2
Ye wouldn't catch me dead in either, lederhosen or dirndl. "Ick bin Baleenerin." Translated "I'm from Berlin." Berlin dialect, natch.
6
@Dan
The line was JFK in Berlin -- Ich bin ein Berliner.
Unfortunately, a Berliner is a jelly donut auf Deutsch.
6
@Dan
Ick bin ooch... But unless you are female, you are not a "Baleenerin". And it translates as "I'm a Berliner" -- not "I'm from Berlin".
7
@dbsmith
In Berlin we call jelly donuts 'Pfannkuchen' -- in the rest of Germany they're called 'Berliner'.
And JFK line was grammatically incorrect.
It should've been 'Ich bin Berliner" -- the way he said it, he actually called himself a jelly donut.
1
Every woman can and will look great in a classy dirndl. And every dude too in a well cut traditional Lederhosen. That is the main reason why it is becoming more popular. It simply looks sexy when you girlfriend is wearing it, and then the boy has to dress-up too. It is ridiculous to think there is a political message behind it. Upper Bavaria delivered a below-average popular vote for the NSDAP in the 1933 election.
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@Ulrich Kubilke I think when Germany hosted the World Cup (2004?), Germans finally felt free to wave the flag, cheer their national team, and be proud of their nation and its traditions -- free of nationalist taint and the Nazi past.
7
So traditional garb is no longer conservative or politically tinged, but ask a bar owner or an immigrant, and the costumes are either excluded outright or become the ground of chauvinistic identity-checking? "Do you even speak German?" Seems the article is deeply confused and needs rewritten.
4
@Robert The article is pointing out that the recent trend is viewed differently by different people. I think that's all the article is attempting to tell us.
18
I was stationed in Germany during the early 1980s as a young American soldier. I did not speak German well at all but was always amazed at how warmly I was treated by German citizens especially in Bavaria. Of course I don’t really know much about German politics now especially on a local level but the Germans I met would most likely be parents and grandparents by now which I think bodes well for this so called millennial generation.
24
In 1962 I was a college student working in a hotel on Monhegan Island in Maine. The clients stayed for longish periods and ate at the same table every day, so we got to know them. Among many interesting people, two stand out - a well known American Jewish author and social commentator and her husband, who was European. One morning, a family appeared in the dining room in Bavarian national costume - though i did not know that's what it was then. This distinguished couple bcame pale, strained, and left the room instantly. I knew why, though of course I did not Really know why.
23
@kate wow what an incredible moment to observe. Peace and love to all....what a difficult situation on all sides. Who knows what the lederhosen wearer's politics or history was but the others' reaction is completely understandable ...wow.
2
As a North German, I automatically associate Tracht (traditional clothing) with right-wing South Germans and Austrians.
18
Some, me included, used to automatically associate long hair and beards on males with counterculture, hippies, left-wing politics.
Now?
6
@Max Brockmeier that's the definition of prejudice. Tracht has nothing to do with politics. Politicians from every party can be seen wearing tracht in Bavaria and not just recently also in the 80s and 90s when there was no hype.
14
@Max Brockmeier Hopefully this article made you re-think that stereotype.
11
'Ms. Ansari recalled feeling alienated the first few times she donned a dirndl during village fetes. “It felt like carnival,” she recalled. “People would look at me and say, ‘Do you even speak German?’ ”'
There's a lot hiding in this woman's experience. Young Bavarians may claim that there's nothing political or nationalist in their choice to wear these clothes, but I'm not so sure I believe them.
35
@sedanchairI don't think it's fair to ascribe the same motivation or intent to each and every person who dons this traditional garb.
7
Agreed @kris and I believe NYTimes covered the situation in which a white american teenager wore traditional Chinese dress to prom and was vilified for it....presumptions about motivation for dress (actions) or anything else are the least possible expression of knowledge. As a german born american/asian who was dressed in a Dirndl from a very young age, and my younger brother in lederhosen which are not attractive per the other commenter's opinion LOL- i find this all very disheartening.
1
I spent my Junior Year abroad studying at the University of Munich in the mid-80's and was just back for the opening weekend of Oktoberfest this year. I noticed this remarkable trend right away, both in the prevalence of Tracht on the street and in the much wider availability of traditional garb.
One of my best friends from that year was Bavarian. He took me back to his village for dinner with his parents and we stopped in at a local cobbler where they made traditional shoes and I bought a pair. But as proud as Martin was of where he came from and having fun teaching me the Bavarian dialect, I never saw him dressed in Lederhosen. German youth whom I got to know at that time were more interested in Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Italian Mediterranean coast than in much that was traditional German.
With only a few days at a trade show and then revisiting the city, I did not have the time or contact with people to discern the underlying motivation for this shift, but I did see at least a small diversity of people, including Asians and people of color included in groups of young people all wearing Dirnl and Lederhosen.
6
@David Norman
Ich auch! JYM 1986-87. Tracht was an instant sartorial signifier that an icy glare was probably about to come my way. On Saturdays there was a Flohmarkt near Isartor or Fraunhoferstrasse where lederhosen etc could be snapped up on the cheap as gag gifts to send home.
3
To wear dirndl and lederhosen is not a political statement or a sign of nationalism. For most of young people (not only bavarians, but people from all over the world) are lederhosen and dirndl just party outfit. There are no dangerous items in the pockets of our lederhosen. The real dangerous things are in the pockets of some suits.
72
I think the article is missing some important aspects: “good” Dirndl and Lederhosen are actually quite expensive and available only in some exclusive stores..which makes them perfect “show off” accessories for the millennials. Luxury is not limited to big name department stores...
19
@Thorsten Fleiter There are many people who sew their own dirndl. It's much cheaper and you can modify it for your local area since most areas have their own special differences. Also, some dirndls have been handed down in their families. I have a friend (in Germany) that wears her grandmothers!
7
Love it!! I miss Germany so much; British by blood, but German in mind and spirit....
15
Maybe unrelated, but in a recent visit to Berlin, I was shocked to see many of those riding bikes to be wearing bike helmets that resembled German WW2 helmets.
5
@David M It's interesting they stood out to you in Germany. I see them around New York and the greater U.S., usually worn by Harley-riders. I've heard that bikers wear them do so to comply minimally with helmet laws. They have stood out to me because I always hope the wearer is safe, as they offer minimal protection.
9
@David M Have you seen their police and fire helmets? They, too, have that WWII look.
1
@Kris. Yea, I've seen them in the US too, but the percentage is higher in Berlin. Further, I would expect that in GDR, they would be avoided. By the way, I was speaking of pedal bikes, not motorbikes. I don't think there was a law in Berlin that pedal bikers needed a helmet.
I'm sure social media has a lot to do with this as well. In jeans and a tshirt, you could be anyone from anywhere, but if you're in lederhosen screams "Bavaria!" :)
12
I am intrigued by the term "Heimat". My grandmother, whom I believe had at least one southern German or Swiss German ancestor, would not ask what someone's maiden name was. Rather, she'd say "Who is she from home-out"? My mom, equally German but with Prussian antecedents, thought that was really strange. Maybe that's the origin?
6
@Ellen I can't speak for much older generations of German-speakers, but in present-day German your grandmother's question, literally translated, doesn't make sense grammatically. You also wouldn't usually ask anyone in casual conversation what their Heimat is, that would be a strange use of the word. You'd just ask where they are from, just as you would in English. Heimat has a more flowery home-is-where-the-heart-is connotation.
15
@RM Interesting! Maybe it was a local expression or just something she said.
I‘m German and I wonder what she meant with „home-out“? There is a Swabian—not Bavarian—term „aushausig“ (aus = out; Haus = house; ig makes it an adjective). It refers to going out and it also means to live above your means (take the money out of the house). Of course, you‘d never mention this in a casual conversation when getting to know a person.
4
Can we not for once refrain from questioning this fashion trend as being motivated by political affiliations. We, the older generation, neither being Bavarians nor Austrians enjoyed this fashion 50 plus years ago. The very expensive and beautiful tailored evening outfits (mostly without the aprons) were always made fashionable again and again by the "Schickeria". My friends from Austria and Bavaria and I were discussing the recent trend and came to the conclusion that these outfits look well on women of all sizes and are very comfortable - except in the Texas heat.
51
@Gaby FranzeSo refresthing to see a comment such as yours! These costumes do look great on all people and add festivity. Let's leave it at that and check our biases at die Tur!
9
It's just a dress. Hipsters will appropriate anything. It means nothing whatsoever. 99% of the young people wearing it don't even know any of its history. Which is just as well because it also does not mean anything.
24
99% of statistics are just pulled out of the air. From who knows where?
3
@Mr. Samsa Can you prove that claim?
1
How about 1. 'We're young, adult AND WE ARE HERE, and 2. It can look sexy in a different kind of way if done right.
25
Some of us look sexy in anything, and nothing too.
1
“It has nothing to do with politics."
Bookmark this and let's talk in ten years. The very heart of conservative Germany never strays far from politics.
43
More signs of the anti globalism Effort. Liberals take notice, culture is not so easily erased so the corporate masters can raise their “ GDP”
16
The corporate masters like Aldi seem to be doing quite fine from this trend!
11
I’m Bavarian born and raised, lived in Munich for 32 years before moving abroad, am as unpatriotic as Germans come, spent a significant time of my life taking part in anti fascist demonstrations and am disgusted by the current right wing political shift. Me and my friends have worn Lederhosen to the Oktoberfest since we were children in the 80s. Why? Because it looks funny.
120
This article is making my day.
There is hope for the world after all!
19
The other part of this story is that many people still reflect on the fact that Bavaria was the "Kingdom of Bavaria" before it was part of Germany. Like so many places that were sovereign entities before becoming unified with something else (think Texas), there is an undercurrent of pride in this history and very strong cultural elements. Traditional clothing is just one part of this history and has always been a visible part. You may want to link it to politics - but I think the reasons the dirndl and lederhosen are popular, run much deeper than that.
81
Nationalism returns. Millennials are the first generation who have no living relatives who remember World War II.
69
@Kathy Regionalism and nationalism are not the same. In France for instance, many people in the countryside embrace the European Union as a way to wriggle free from the iron grip of Paris.
9
@Kathy - Seriously? Equating a bunch of 20somethings trying to be cool to the resurgence of nationalism. As pointed out over and over again in the article, there is nothing political about this trend -even the Green party candidate was wearing a dirndl. I guess some will see everything in Germany through Hollywood tinted National Socialist glasses no matter what.
15
@Kathy this is factually incorrect
7
Only at the end do we hear what this might really be about. Why not ask any of these kids about their political views? “Proud to be Bavarian?” Why?
16
@Mary
They did ask, and referenced the discussions early in the article:
“But many young Bavarians say they are not talking politics by celebrating their heritage — they are claiming it back and at times subverting it.”
22
@Mary, If you have to ask why young Bavarians are proud to celebrate their traditions, then you don't understand tradition. Not everything is political. I lived in Italy for 4 years in a very traditional place where festivals involving costumes, history and events were deeply embedded and appreciated.
Here in the States, everything is about how much money you can spend and how big your house is. No wonder everything boils down to politics rather than culture.
61