Dress in Paris, South of France, Barcelona
 

For all you wondering about dress in Paris, South of France and Barcelona here is what I observed. I returned home late Thursday night. I saw a lot of color, hardly any black pants. The black pants I did see were on toursits, or I should say people who looked like tourists. Lots of capri's on women of all ages and sizes. The capri's were in all colors. Also as I stated in another post lots and lots of man capri's. The young people dressed almost the same as the kids in my daughters high school. Also lots of baseball caps on the young crowd. They were the kids of the cities and I could tell by their speech. Oh yes, lots of tennis shoes and white ones too! They were also on the young and old of the cities.

Really, I don't understand so much wondering in this forum about clothes. I mean, I don't ask myself that kind of questions when travelling. I think everybody would look at me if I go nude, but if I dress as I do at home..who minds ? :)

Sorry, darling, but most of us are not trying to achieve the look of an insipid high school student from a small town in Iowa. Your advice is wasted here, as some of us actually live in large, metropolitan cities and know how to dress ourselves.

My, My aren't we all snid tonight. The high school comment was ment for high school students not for Old people or small minded like yourself. How do you know where I live? I was trying to share what I saw as to help someone else as the dress questions come up often. Go back in the hole that you crawled out of in your big Metropolitan city!

High-school students in Paris do not dress as they do in the USA ... which is why American high-school students are so easy to spot in Paris. The ones you saw who were dressed like Americans probably WERE Americans, as they nearly outnumber the natives in touristy destinations like Paris.

The easiest way to spot female American high-school students in Paris, at least, is to look for flip-flops. French girls hardly ever wear them except in the hottest weather; American girls (apparently) wear them in all but the coldest weather, at least when travelling.

Other potential American symptoms in tourists include fingernail and toenail polish, shorts (for guys), bright colors (especially in anyone past his or her teens), t-shirts with anything on them, backpacks ... and Canadian flags (someone has told Americans that they should wear Canadian flags on their backpacks, and so nowadays any tourist wearing Canadian flags is an obvious American).

I was in Paris a little over a week ago. Maybe I was mistaken but when riding the Metro all over Paris the "HIGH SCHOOL" students I was speaking of spoke perfect French. Maybe our American schools have taught large amount of students fluent French.....

Please wear what you like. The French kids who visit us dress just like our children, in so many different ways but they end up alike.

Hester, Perhaps you could tell us what "people who look like tourists" actually DO look like and how can we be certain that they are tourists from the United States?

Do they have better teeth, rosy complexions, don't "look foreign" or what????

I have A LOT of respect for people who travel and do not want to look like tourists (meaning, looking ill-dressed). I often wonder at the tourist looking at works of art. If he has developed a sense for aesthetics, can appreciate balance, proportion, composition, use of colour... where is his sense of aesthetics when it comes to buying clothes and putting them together?. This question has always been a dilemma to me. And please don't tell me that comfortable clothes have to be ugly.

Nowadays young French people have teeth in pretty good shape, since braces and good dental hygiene are much more common than they once were. Some kids still don't brush and still have dirt under their fingernails, but that is only slightly more common among French kids than among American kids.

Complexions are pretty much the same among whites. Black American tourists are often easy to recognize from their relatively light skin, though; blacks from Africa have much darker skin.

American kids can sometimes be recognized by their obesity. French kids (and indeed French adults up to at least age 40-50) are never fat. American kids are often fat, and they are very easy to spot as Americans when they are overweight.

The tourists who look the most like American tourists are German tourists; sometimes the only way to tell them apart is to listen to them speak. Or those sandals with socks that give Germans away in Paris.

Hi hester,

Apparently, no good deed goes unpunished around here.

((I))

Ira, darling, get down off of your crucifix. Someone else needs the wood.