Differences between Berlin and Stockholm
Berlin is very, very cheap. Stockholm is one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Berlin has 3.4 million people. Stockholm has 1.6 million.
95% of the original buildings in central Berlin were either destroyed or heavily damaged by bombs during the Second World War. Sweden has not been at war since 1809, when they lost Finland to the Russians. Ergo Stockholm is pristine.
Berliners' fashion can best be divided into the four categories of people who wear it:
1) Bourgeois German: Women in their late thirties, forties, and fifties have their hair buzz-cut and dyed a deep purplish cranberry. They wear comfortable brown leather shoes, and have husbands who also wear comfortable brown leather shoes. They wear matching canvas coats that are expensive-looking.
2) Mainstream youth inspired by the mainstream: These young people are almost entirely non-descript, conforming as they do to the international clique of normality. That is, they wear black pants or jeans, polo shirts and t-shirts. I'd go on, but it's just not that interesting. Suffice it to say, they're barely noticeable, but everywhere.
3) Berlin academics/Berlin clubkids: I shouldn't put these two together, but in Berlin there is a fluid line between the student crowd and the club crowd. The students tend toward vintage clothing, mostly late seventies at this point, in shades of red, brown, dark green, and black (yes, SHADES of black -- mostly the faded shade.). The club kids tend toward vintage clothing and clothing that is new and costly but LOOKS vintage, and it's mostly early eighties at this point. You can see how it gets confusing.
4) The anything-goes people who are wearing sarongs: yes, they wear whatever they find at the consignment store, and it's often a strange-looking bandanna from 1999 or a pineapple festooned sarong. They live in Kreuzberg.
Stockholmians' fashion sense can of course ALSO be broken down into categories, but, friends and blog-o-lovers, I am not advanced enough to do that for you at this point.
Still I will tell you how Stockholm fashion APPEARS to me.
Everyone, from age nine to ninety-nine, is so spiffy it's almost military. They do not wear sarongs, they do not wear drab, shapeless car coats made of canvas, (they certainly don't wear sneakers unless they are of a rare limited edition) they do not bend to flighty eighties come-back fashions in neon tones, nor do they wear vintage clothing that has faded from its original black. No. The Stockholmians look as if they were all secretly preparing to play in an Antonioni film. Everyone got a part both glamourous and tragic. Here the dapper 65-year-old who came to the big city to make his fortune as a poet, but longs to return to his weatherbeaten sailboat, Anastasia; there the long-tressed mistress of the doomed physicist whose eyes are full of a melancholy beauty; ah, and there the doomed physicist himself, with his unlikely cravat... THS also recently remarked that they all seem to be going to the same dermatalogist, and s/he is _good_.
One enjoys being surrounded by such beautiful/beautifully turned-out people. And yet, one wonders whether one might not be driven crazy by it all in the end. In Stockholm, clothing must match, and I don't mean: avoid putting purple with orange, I mean avoid putting navy-blue with black (no no!) and red with brown (no no no!) and, alas, green with blue (jeans).
So what matches in Stockholmland, you may ask? Well, as has been so painstakingly explained to me: grey matches with light grey. And various shades of navy blue all match with each other. And white, even in Stockholm, still matches with everything.
Berlin has 3.4 million people. Stockholm has 1.6 million.
95% of the original buildings in central Berlin were either destroyed or heavily damaged by bombs during the Second World War. Sweden has not been at war since 1809, when they lost Finland to the Russians. Ergo Stockholm is pristine.
Berliners' fashion can best be divided into the four categories of people who wear it:
1) Bourgeois German: Women in their late thirties, forties, and fifties have their hair buzz-cut and dyed a deep purplish cranberry. They wear comfortable brown leather shoes, and have husbands who also wear comfortable brown leather shoes. They wear matching canvas coats that are expensive-looking.
2) Mainstream youth inspired by the mainstream: These young people are almost entirely non-descript, conforming as they do to the international clique of normality. That is, they wear black pants or jeans, polo shirts and t-shirts. I'd go on, but it's just not that interesting. Suffice it to say, they're barely noticeable, but everywhere.
3) Berlin academics/Berlin clubkids: I shouldn't put these two together, but in Berlin there is a fluid line between the student crowd and the club crowd. The students tend toward vintage clothing, mostly late seventies at this point, in shades of red, brown, dark green, and black (yes, SHADES of black -- mostly the faded shade.). The club kids tend toward vintage clothing and clothing that is new and costly but LOOKS vintage, and it's mostly early eighties at this point. You can see how it gets confusing.
4) The anything-goes people who are wearing sarongs: yes, they wear whatever they find at the consignment store, and it's often a strange-looking bandanna from 1999 or a pineapple festooned sarong. They live in Kreuzberg.
Stockholmians' fashion sense can of course ALSO be broken down into categories, but, friends and blog-o-lovers, I am not advanced enough to do that for you at this point.
Still I will tell you how Stockholm fashion APPEARS to me.
Everyone, from age nine to ninety-nine, is so spiffy it's almost military. They do not wear sarongs, they do not wear drab, shapeless car coats made of canvas, (they certainly don't wear sneakers unless they are of a rare limited edition) they do not bend to flighty eighties come-back fashions in neon tones, nor do they wear vintage clothing that has faded from its original black. No. The Stockholmians look as if they were all secretly preparing to play in an Antonioni film. Everyone got a part both glamourous and tragic. Here the dapper 65-year-old who came to the big city to make his fortune as a poet, but longs to return to his weatherbeaten sailboat, Anastasia; there the long-tressed mistress of the doomed physicist whose eyes are full of a melancholy beauty; ah, and there the doomed physicist himself, with his unlikely cravat... THS also recently remarked that they all seem to be going to the same dermatalogist, and s/he is _good_.
One enjoys being surrounded by such beautiful/beautifully turned-out people. And yet, one wonders whether one might not be driven crazy by it all in the end. In Stockholm, clothing must match, and I don't mean: avoid putting purple with orange, I mean avoid putting navy-blue with black (no no!) and red with brown (no no no!) and, alas, green with blue (jeans).
So what matches in Stockholmland, you may ask? Well, as has been so painstakingly explained to me: grey matches with light grey. And various shades of navy blue all match with each other. And white, even in Stockholm, still matches with everything.
posted by Ida at 11:00 PM
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