Beret question

You'll look lovely. Some in France are high quality from the Basque region. If you are suddenly self-conscious, just buy something else as a souvenir.

My daughter-in-law and her mother are receiving black berets for Christmas this year and I am adding a little decorative pin.

A light-hearted answer - as long as you don’t look like a member of the Griswolds European Family vacation movie. 😉

Will I look like a cheesy tourist?

Not at all, unless you wear it with sneakers.

Hahaha! I’ll try not to!

Our family prides ourselves on not looking like American tourists, Lol. I’ll be careful! Haha!

I suggest a:

Raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second hand store

And see if they think you are a friend of royalty (a prince) if you:

walk in through the out door, out door

To avoid looking like an American tourist, I wear a Silver Beaver Stetson.

Haha. Someone had to do it! 😂

Actually sneakers will work if they are Converse, which are common on Parisian streets!

Good one James!!!

love it james🤪👍
on my top 30 list of favorites!
aloha

Tocard is joking. You will notice that most of the people on the metro will be wearing sneakers these days and a fair number of them will be the big ugly white ones that Americans used to be ridiculed for. And they will be wearing them with jeans.

You will notice that most of the people on the metro will be wearing
sneakers these days and a fair number of them will be the big ugly
white ones that Americans used to be ridiculed for. And they will be
wearing them with jeans.

Not my experience, but goes to demonstrate that "Europe" is not a place, but a collection of places....each unique.

I don't know any reason that a beret, worn correctly, would make you look silly.

My mother used to wear one all the time. I remember that very fondly.

K2 making my point -- that the big ugly white shoes that once caused people to ridicule Americans have had their fashion moment in France. Decades ago when I was on an early European trip and had not yet managed to find and embrace walking shoes designed for travel, I wore my trainers since I knew I would be doing a lot of walking -- and was personally ridiculed by locals. There were points and smirks and one person actually confronted me about them.

Most of the sneakers in France are dark and there are hundreds of styles available; my husband usually buys his shoes and shirts in Paris as he gets a better fit and has more style choice on shoes and there is a store there that has a wide variety of the type of button down shirt he generally wears.

As to jeans -- I have counted what people are wearing on many a boring wait for a train and most people in Paris are wearing jeans -- and now more and more some sort of yoga pant especially on women -- you rarely see anything else except on someone going to work with a briefcase. When we first visited Paris we would see old ladies in carefully kept knit suits and except for kids/teens few people in jeans in public -- now pretty much everyone is wearing them including old ladies.

I also saw a ton of people wearing Veja sneakers in France. I’m definitely going to get a pair before my next trip!

So the wool beret, winter weight (for a cool-weather trip to France?) is coming on the trip? Excellent!

Ummmm, there’s not a propeller sticking out of the top, right? 🤣

I feel like I am going to be the stereotypical American, which is fine by me.. wear what you want! I don’t personally care about other peoples stares and snickering though. If people need to have some need fulfilled by mocking others then you gotta pity them.

I think sniggering to themselves is unlikely - much more likely that it will get little more than a glance and move on ...

There was a time when it was very common to see Germans here playing cowboy. We loved them for it. Dont know why Europeans would have a different mindset.

I have a French friend who wears a beret all winter. She does not understand how I don’t wear one because I don’t wear hats. She looks magnificent in, she pulls it off with that style. She has given me one. Maybe it’s my short hair but it won’t even stay on my head and I look like an American tourist trying to look like stylish ( doesn’t work ). But if you can pull it off it’s a great look

K2 -- I basically agree that most of the time no one cares about each of us -- they aren't thinking of us at all. BUT I have personally been ridiculed for wearing white trainers -- this was 20 or 30 years ago when on an early trip I didn't hve comfortable walking shoes and I am not getting blisters for style. But there was smirking and someone making a crack about Americans and their stupid white shoes. And there was a time when you didn't see many jeans on adults in Paris. That time is long gone.

There seems to be some sort of inferiority complex in play

If snickering is going on, either surreptitious or outright, it’s likely those doing the snickering, not the object of their derision, who feel inferior, and are projecting that inadequacy on their intended victim. I had a sister-in-law like that. Not comfortable to experience it.

I experienced the same, Janet. Snickers. The first rubber sole shoes to make it big were the Vans in the 1980s with the teens. But most of all, standing outside waiting for the RER in winter, the feet would freeze. I had to wear shoes with thick leather soles, like Minelli’s, and rabbit fur shoe inserts.

you know those people who judge others on how they look always remind me of a car dealer. About 20 years ago I totaled a fairly new car (I was rear-ended, I was not hurt but the car was gone.). So the next day wearing shorts , T-shirt, and driving a rental Corolla I went to the Saab dealer to buy a new 9-3 convertible. They wouldn’t even bother to come out of the sales offices to wait on me. So even though this was early in car buying online I went online and found a dealer four hours away who was more than eager to help me, they met me at the airport and drove me over to sign the paperwork for my car. When I took the car back to the dealer in my hometown to have it serviced I went in to find the manager and I pointed at the car that he was getting ready to service and I said “ you see that car, that was one of the easiest sales you would’ve ever made, I had the cash I needed a car and your people couldn’t bother to come out of their offices and wait on me because I didn’t look like I could afford it. Your loss”. Kind of like that scene in pretty woman and it made me feel really good. (He Did have the decency to at least stricken at the fact that they had blown and easy sale).

So if someone is walking around Paris judging you based on the way you’re dressed, it probably says more about them than you. If you judge somebody by their outfit, and you’re wrong, you look like the fool