European Culture Observations

 I find myself to be quite the “people watcher”, and being in Europe is no exception. Because of this, as well as just a general interest in fashion, I have been noticing differences in ways people dress here. We had previously discussed in Turin some of the differences between the US and Turin in fashion. Some of these observations were that the Italians tend to wear higher end brands, and tend to be more dressed up day to day. I personally noticed a lot of black clothing or more muted colors, higher quality materials, and fancier shoes and bags than what we typically see in America. The shops also depicted this, as there were many more high end stores on any given street, and the clothing sold at various shops were on the dressier side. 

Moving to Lyon, I expected much of the same, but I was surprised at how different the two locations were in terms of fashion. The clothes appeared to be high quality yet, but where I used to see muted colors and lots of black and white, I instead saw many bright colors and patterns. Instead of high end, name brand stores, there were more boutiques featuring the bright clothes I was seeing. Day to day, the people seemed to be more “dressed down” compared to the Italians as well. Lyon was a busier city, with more tourists than I had noticed in Turin, which may explain this less dressy nature, but I did feel like it was still worth noting. 

Overall, there were some similarities, as in both locations people tended to dress up more for work during the day and typically wore high quality clothing. However, I thought that the differences in styles were interesting, and can be a good representation of what two different cultures value in fashion and how they present themselves.