Dress like a local

Mr. E.....this is a fantastic and useful report. Thanks so much. I wish others on the Forum living outside the US would do something similar for their country. Your survey will be so helpful to so many.

One note on the men's shorts. They were all nice. Not trashed out old cargo shorts.

And one old guy was wearing an Aggie cap, Columbia fishing shirt, jeans and flip flops.

Oh, shoes. Tennis shoes, men 100%. Women 75%.

One should always note is that people dress according to their day. Is it work, or not. If you are a tourist in comfortable clothes and riding the metro. walking the streets and see others dressed for work, it is a noticeable discrepancy. We were out in Japan dressed for the hot and humid weather and were surrounded in the AM by white shirts, black pants, black shoes all matching to work. On the weekends, not so. People much more tuned to comfort and the weather.

And this is how I thought you dressed like a local.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/302093087480995157/

I found the same in Portugal. Lots of shorts, even mostly shorts for men. Women in dresses, skirts and most often, attractive, more modest shorts. The thing I found most striking was that female locals and tourists alike, wore "sensible" shoes. Sometimes I see the most ridiculous shoes on tourists. Lots of sneakers, flats and flat sandals in Portugal. Unless they were carrying a camera or using a guidebook or navigation, tourists didn't stand out.

It's mid day so these aren't people going to work.

I am guessing mostly daily errands and shopping (also judging by the shopping bags that 1 in 5 is carrying). And while I only took note today, it pretty typical all day long most of the warmer weather. They typically dress a bit less "American" (no jeans), few t-shirts.

For nice dinners, the theater, etc, the locals seem to dress better than the average American. If you stick to local places people dress fairly conservative and neat but stylish. In the tourist bars it's all together different.

On the way back home, closer to the end of business, I saw more women in pants, but only a few in jeans, men dressed about the same. Then I got on the M1 metro and the world changed. Its the one used most by tourists. The quality of dress went down considerably. Dont blame Americans, they are the miniority of the tourists here. Rare you hear American English.

Anyway, now corrected, I hope someone finds it useful in packing for the region in the summer.

RE: jeans, it's too warm for them right now many parts of the northern hemisphere. Skirts/dresses are much cooler. You couldn't pay me to wear jeans rin the summer months unless I were vacationing up at the Arctic Circle. Even then I probably wouldn't wear them, they take up too much room in my bag.

In the winter is it common to see men/women wearing jeans?

I have been in Berlin in cold weather a few times and on the streets the uniform is pretty much head to toe black or dark grey, with a colorful scarf perhaps. What clothing items you're wearing fade into the background, it's all dark in color.

Laurie Beth, I dont have to work, so i have more free time than many. This does take time. Then there is always the risk you will get slapped like I did with this post. That discourages many. But yes, it surprises me too. We have memebers in a half dozen different countries that I can think of. Maybe someone should start a thread encouraging it? I would love to learn more about different places.

kayla.p. I come from Texas. We wear jeans 12 months a year. Some times more than one pair. No one wore a dress when I was growing up. Well, no one under 40 at least I know my perception of how they dress in the winter here. I never paid much attention. I only did this for fun and to kill some time while I finished a beer. But my perception is pretty much what you stated. But when we get some good cold weather maybe I will do another post. But i need to learn some more fashion terms first.

Ha! Mr. E you are probably familiar with the term "Texas Tuxedo". They're not exclusive to Texas, they're worn by Georgians too, mostly outside of the metro areas.

Edited to add that i'll be in Budapest in a few weeks so your observations were interesting. I'm not concerned about standing out as a tourist, but it's fun to read about how the locals really dress.

I dont dress significantly different here. My neighbors have gotten use to it. Jeans with the crease, Boots, Stetson, belt buckle on ocassion.

I dont worry about standing out as a tourist either. I just enjoy the day. I tend to dress a bit better than many from time to time. It gets me better service in the places I go. Or sometimes I get better service if I look Texan as all get out.

But t-shirt and shorts is pretty common too. Its no different in Europe than any place else, people have too much to do than to worry about how you are dressed.

But I know a few tourist want to put their best foot forward so I thought the post might be interesting.

The one exception I have is a nice night out. The theater or a nice locals only restaurant. For that i do my absolute best out of respect for them, because I know the majority of them can only afford a nice night out on rare ocassions and they treat it special, so I should too.

If you'd like my fit-check as a local in London today, I was wearing a white long sleeve linen shirt (oversize, untucked; XL was on sale at Uniqlo), and beige Nike ACG pants, like a chino rather than cargo or too sporty. Black Nike Cortez on my feet. I have a couple of linen shirts I've been wearing a lot this year. I like wearing a shirt when I'm going into town. My other favourite shirt at the moment is by Viyella, an old English country brand, as you'd wear shooting or tending the farm. If you Google "Viyella Tattersall check" you'll get the idea.

I wear shorts around the house and locally, but I wouldn't generally go further or do much more than the local shops in them. Same goes for sweatpants.

The nice weather has been a great leveller in the tourist-spotting game. It's harder to tell when locals are more dressed for the good weather too. I find it quite easy to have a guess at who's American in London. I have found that Americans seem to overdress for the weather in the city a bit. It's warm today, but usually you can tell when someone is dressed in very technical outdoor gear (especially Eddie Bauer, which we don't get over here) and shoes and a baseball cap that they might be American.

edit: I hadn't thought about this being in Hungary before I started rambling about London and what I'm wearing. If we're talking wider Europe, I suppose that's something.

No way I'm wearing jeans at home when it's 85F. As the temps where I live continue to increase, so do the number of dresses in my wardrobe. Even when I'm just hanging out at home. It's a practical thing.

Yikes, I wear a lot of Eddie Bauer. Point taken, although I really like their clothes for travel because they pack and wash well. And I always travel with a pair of jeans.

and a baseball cap that they might be American.

Here, the locals love their baseball caps. NY is the most common but any of a dozen US sports teams is common. There is even a store not far and it's all they sell.

Here, the locals love their baseball caps

Some people wear baseball caps here too. It would be unusual to see an English guy in his 40's or 50's in town in a baseball cap here though. When you add it to the Eddie Bauer and the hiking shoes, it's a decent enough indicator. Throw in a college sweatshirt and you've got bingo.

Being pragmatic about it, if you're out seeing all the sights around London, clocking up 20 000 steps. maybe you need hiking gear. If it rains you have to power through it. It's probably quite sensible.

I'm an Orvis kinda guy, so maybe you wouldn't notice me.

I'm an Orvis kinda guy, so maybe you wouldn't notice me

I had to Google Orvis and their gear looks like quality for the fishing. I probably would notice you now you've mentioned it as the next person I see wearing Orvis will catch my eye.

This might be London specific, so forgive me, but a big local thing is tote bags.

People express the personality and allegiances through the print on their tote bag. I'm always assessing strangers' character based on what it says on their bag. Tate art galleries are very popular (person likes art), as is ual (University of the Arts London; person likes art enough to have studied it) and Flashback Records (person likes digging for secondhand records).

I have one from an obscure research project at an obscure university faculty (makes me look more intellectual and better educated than I am), my favourite music software (Ableton Live) and one in a nice brown colour free from my optician which goes well with my olive green jacket. A canvas tote bag totally makes you look like a local in London.

Gerry, tote bags are a thing with college aged kids here in the US, especially if they come from a second hand shop and have some kind of niche logo or artwork on it. I have a son who's a senior in college who has quite a collection of them, and uses them to carry his stuff around campus (including his laptop, though I insisted he get a protective case for it if he wouldn't carry it in a backpack).

Ah! They have slightly wider appeal here, fully grown adults too :)

I'm loathe to post an article from the Daily Mail, but here's a piece about another London favourite tote, from Daunt Books.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13158133/london-fashion-daunt-books-tote-bag-jodie-comer.html

I've read Marc Jacobs, miu miu and Balenciaga have versions this year, which I assume is a reaction to trends coming up from the street.

Here's another article from way back that sort of captures what I'm talking about.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/nov/16/totes-canvas-bag-marni-cheese-shop-self-image-tribe

Yes, those totebags in the Guardian article are exactly what all the kids are carrying here. Preferably with a bookstore or an art museum logo, or from a quirky boutique, a band, an organic market, etc. I have a few tote bags like that but I generally only use them for bagging my groceries; I don't find them especially practical or comfortable for daily use and definitely not for travel.

Here it's just OBI and JYSK bags full of bottles for deposit.

Given the topic, it was funny to find a link to this in my inbox this morning. https://www.cntraveller.com/article/best-baseball-caps-for-wearing-on-a-flight?uID=7c410f027f87c20bc98af6219567d1e40ba4b2d84c89ac7381414d37bc095e5c&utm_campaign=newsletter_daily&utm_source=newsletter&utm_brand=cnt&utm_mailing=CNT_NEWS_Daily_140824&utm_medium=email&utm_term=CNT_DAILY_ACTIVE

Wolter's World published a video on just this sort of topic today.

https://youtu.be/GJKG4bqCQYM?si=p3pPui4E3xI_9kM-

Okay, I live in a European tourist district. I see it all day long. The only thing in that video that is correct to a noticeable degree is the knife and fork. The rest may be 10% more common among Americans, but when Americans only make up 10% of the tourists no one is going to assume they are Americsn cause their shirt is baggy.

Thanks for this observation. Revealing and useful.

I don't dress like a local but still no jeans , no caps of any kind, above all, no baseball cap, no hats, no shorts, no backpacks, cross bags, etc. I wear tennis shoes , most often white Nike.

I am revisiting this old post because I watched an old James Bond movie (in Hungarian) and was reminded that Roger Moore ran around Europe in the Summer in a suit. And somehow with no luggage had a spare tux with him when needed. Also reminded me of when my father would go to Europe on business in the 60's and 70's and when my mother went along she bought a new wardrobe for the trip. People really did dress like that ........... in certain circles at least. Cant imagine wearing a suit here on a daily basis in the summer.

But all of that did make me notice something else. There has been a change in the last 10 years, or at least since COVID. Especially the ladies. They are dressing more "pretty" than ever before. Sorry, ladies, I dont know the proper terminology and that has gotten me in trouble once already. But prints and long dresses of very nice fabrics. Just plain pretty. That wasnt so much the case ten years ago. Maybe more modern than what my mother wore and of course, where my mother would have had heals, they have silver tennis shoes with the long bright floral pattern dress.

The guys? A bit better, but still more a more casual and less cared for appearance. The best dressed gentleman tourist i have met in recent years was an Indian gentleman from the RS forum. He looked out of GQ most of the time .... and to be fair to his family, all of them had style.