I Traveled Around the World in Lederhosen (pt. 1)

I don’t remember how the idea came about. At first, it was simply a joke that we kept repeating. Eventually, the absurdity of it all became enticing. How would people react?

Finally, I decided to fully commit to the idea, leaping headfirst into the ridiculousness. On my upcoming trip around the world, I would be packing my traditional Bavarian lederhosen.

Lederhosen, which mean leather pants in German, were the typical work clothes of peasants in my home region. Over time, they became fashionable in the upper class as a festival attire, which is where the image of lederhosen at Munich’s Oktoberfest comes from. When King Ludwig celebrated his upcoming marriage with the city of Munich, the festival was born. In 1887, the organizers of Oktoberfest announced that lederhosen and dirndl (the non-leather equivalent for women) would be the official garb of attendees at the event.

Today, we Bavarians wear the clothing to local festivals and other events in the area. It’s not uncommon to see a group of young men drinking a beer at the train station, dressed up to go to a festival in a nearby town. At Oktoberfest, you are the odd one if you are in plain clothes.

Still, outside of the state of Bavaria, lederhosen are unusual. Wearing them in other parts of Germany would be considered strange, let alone wearing them in another country!

For this next trip, my girlfriend and I planned to visit five different countries, including three in Asia. I wanted to test the reaction of people seeing my traditional outfit in each place we went. I decided to wear my lederhosen every other day of our trip.

A week before it was time to go, I stopped by a local store selling Tracht, the German word for traditional folk clothing such as lederhosen. I picked up two pairs of woolen socks and another checkered shirt to wearing under the pants. I was all set for my global experiment. Let’s take a look at the results first and then extrapolate some meaning behind them. As a data analyst, I thought it would be fun to gather some data around my interactions in each country.

We will keep these results in mind as I walk through the trip and the reactions I witnessed.

Lederhosen in France

Starting in the south of Germany, we headed to France and our first stop in Avignon. My friend Stefan would be accompanying us to the former papal city. When he and his father picked us up on the way to the train station to start our adventure, I greeted them in my lederhosen. I was excited to surprise my friend and thought the perfect way to commit to my experiment would be to wear the pants on the very first day.

I imagine that Stefan must have contemplated his fate the moment he saw me, knowing that he would be stuck with me in public walking the distinguished streets of the French Provençal for the next two weeks. He didn’t mind, or at least never let on that he did.

We enjoyed a peaceful time visiting the breathtaking city of Avignon and the historic sites nearby. Every time I was dressed in my traditional wear, I felt eyes on me. We visited the Roman Theater in Orange and walked across the Bridge of Avignon. I chuckled at the juxtaposition of myself in lederhosen against the backdrop of iconic French monuments.

After a pleasant time in Avignon, we said goodbye to Stefan and continued on to Montpellier. A college town, there was a youthful and rebellious energy in the place de la comédie. This feeling crescendoed during the night of Carnival, where we found ourselves in the middle of a crowd lighting a massive bonfire. Students piled high old Christmas trees and cardboard boxes to create a roaring flame. Everyone was dressed in silly and creative costumes. Some leapt over the fire, while the group chanted “Tout le monde déteste la police! ” (“the whole world hates the police”). Standing there in my lederhosen, I did not feel out of place at all.

The Reaction in France

When I initially conceived of this experiment, I was fascinated by the reaction and reception I would receive from different countries. I saw this as a lens through which to compare cultures. How does one place react to the absurd compared to another?

In France, people were generally quizzical and good humored. The men smiled wryly and nodded to me, while the women were more subtle and tried to catch secret glances. Some laughed and shouted “Prost” (German for “cheers”) to me, while others furrowed their brows. One man, a photographer, even asked to take a portrait of my girlfriend and I in the park. She, dressed stylishly in black, and I in my traditional wear, made for an interesting juxtaposition, he remarked.

Lederhosen in Spain

From Montpellier, we continued to Spain – starting in Barcelona. While I had planned to wear the lederhosen there as well, the state of the city deterred me. Throngs of tourists, many from Germany, have conquered much of Barcelona. Recently, locals have launched protests against the overtourism of the city. We felt this commercialization and saturation first-hand. In that context, it didn’t feel quite right to walk around Barcelona in my lederhosen. Instead of the cross-cultural communication I was hoping to provoke, I feared that I would look like another ignorant tourist with a beer in my hand.

In Madrid, our next stop, the pants were back on. I strolled along Calle de Serrano, Madrid’s golden mile, in my Tracht. While brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton were being displayed in glittering shop windows, muscle-bound security guards out front, my brandless and one-of-a-kind leather pants kept me clothed.

The thing about lederhosen is that you don’t really wash them. They are meant to be worn repeatedly. You simply switch out the undershirt and underwear. Beer stains and grease marks become a part of the tapestry. There is something of an equalizing force for a society when everyone wears the same clothes all the time. You can’t display your wealth with luxury brands if they are covered up by cow leather.

Our last visit in Spain, and in Europe for that matter, was on the Costa del Sol – in Malaga. On the southern coast of Spain lies one of the oldest cities in Europe. Malaga dates back to the Phoenicians around 770 BC, and its rich history includes rule by the Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and eventually the Spanish Crown. There I was, plodding around in the Moorish fortress of Alcazaba in my lederhosen. Again, I appreciated the anachronistic nature of my presence in these ancient sites. We enjoyed the quiet beaches on the sun-kissed coast and breathed before the next leg of our trip: China.

The Reaction in Spain

In Spain, I received a lot of attention from my lederhosen, but almost all of it was from other tourists. You can see this reflected in the graph at the top. While we felt the tourist presence the most in Barcelona, each Spanish city we visited had its share of foreign guests. Most of the people who spoke to me were Germans… Bavarians even. One person I met in Madrid was visiting from a few dozen kilometers away from my hometown.

One memory that stands out is when we chatted for hours with some English blokes in a bar in Malaga. The bar was filled with middle-aged Englishmen from Leeds visiting for a stag do (read: bachelor party). One member of the group approached me a bit aggressively, poking fun at my clothing. I laughed it off, and another member apologized for his (drunk) friend. Karl, with a “K”, was his name. He told me repeatedly. He was excited to share that his name had the German spelling. We spoke for a long time and left making friends with most of the group. This was the type of icebreaker I had imagined from the wearing the lederhosen.

The Spanish locals were generally very kind and nonchalant. An elderly man outside of a grocery store told me about his time living in Germany forty years ago. A neighbor I met near to where we were staying introduced me to her family as “el alemán que vive aquí” – the German who lives here. No one questioned why I wore what I wore.

Please join me next time as I continue my adventure around the world dressed in the traditional Bavarian lederhosen.