Oktoberfest, dirndls and pride

Its Oktoberfest time in Germany. There is the big, crazy, internationals festival in Munich, and then there's the one in Hannover. Much like our beloved city, it's not so big, but it is cozy, easy to navigate, and fun with the right people around. At Oktoberfest you can eat fair food - we had candied almonds, but you can also get crepes, sausages (of course), pizza and Schmalzkuchen, which is like little squares of funnel cake. You can ride the rides, play carnival games, and visit the beer tents. I went with my friend Ulla last Saturday and we tried almost all of it, including bumper cars (called auto-scooters in German):

The beer tent featured an oom-pa band playing oom-pa music beside some Bavarian flags in front of a huge mural of Hannover's famous Rathaus. They were serving beer of course, but it was Hannover's Gilde rather than a Bavarian brew. It was a bit of an identity crisis in there. That didn't stop people from having a good time, though. There were even a couple of tables of people dressed in lederhosen and dirndls. 

I didn't know what a dirndl was before I moved here. It's that traditional dress that the St Pauli Girl wears: laced up the front, apron and puffy sleeved white blouse showing variable levels of cleavage. It's the traditional dress of Bavaria and the Alpine regions, and a must-have if you are going to the Munich Oktoberfest.

I have no frame of reference for the dirndls. There's really no traditional American dress. The closest we come is the traditional clothing of our immigrant ancestors. And since my family has ancestors from a lot of different places, there's no easy answer. What would I wear? A square dancing outfit? A cowgirl costume? The dirty homespun dresses of immigrants who just spent weeks on a boat to escape the poverty of their homelands? That's not very festive.

Of course, if you are an American Indian it's a different story. Your traditional dress is so famous that the Germans use it as the theme for some kind of a log ride at Oktoberfest. I'm sure you are proud of them for that.

Note the totem poles and the Indians holding guns.

Dirndls, however, are cool. At least they are starting to be cool again. I read a New York Times article stating that one major dirndl distributor's sales have increased 750% in the last ten years. It seems that their popularity reflects how much national pride the Germans are feeling at that moment in history. They were popular in the early 20th century among Bavaria's wealthy ladies, then came back into style as the Third Reich asserted Germany's national identity. Hostesses at the 1972 Olympics in Munich wore blue ones, and they were popular again during Germany's World Cup in 2006. So why now? Why would dirndls become fashionable again? Maybe it's the Euro crisis and the feeling that Germany is bailing out all the other countries in Europe. Maybe it's globalization in general - American movies, Japanese cars and the idea that the "made in Germany" slogan doesn't carry the weight that it used to. Maybe it's because incomes in Germany are pretty high and people can afford them. A nice dirndl costs around 200 euros, without the blouse. Of course, there are the cheaper, costume party variety for around 50 euros. They are definitely made in China.

So while the rustic Alpine women used to dress like this:

 

The girls at Oktoberfest are probably dressed more like this:

 

Of course, that happens in the south of Germany, where they really like to have a good time. Here in the north, we only sort of like to have a good time. So whether you show up wearing a dirndl or not, you can still drive the bumper cars.