I realized how cultural fashion and trend is when I spent nine months in Cardiff, Wales. Before then, I used to wonder who on Earth bought those colorful, striking, tight and bold dresses at H&M and the flowery and cheesy skirts at Zara, because none of my people around did -and I'm including University female students here. Then I go to the UK and see it's THEM buying those clothes when they visit Spain -no wonder why there are always those loooong queues at those shops in Barcelona-. And I and my Spanish friends that came with me were like 'what is going on with this the fluorescent colors and the bold prints here?'. Five months later, I am myself buying that fashion, and when I go to Spain for vacation, I sort of dislike the clothes at the stores. Yet not even then did we dress like the British girls. For once, it was unbearably cold for us to go around in sandals and strapless dresses while it was snowing -yeah, it happened, pity I didn't take pictures. On the other hand, personally I would have felt like wearing a fancy dress. I'd have done it like at a Halloween Party or during Carnival week (we have that in Spain), but not on a regular basis. It was funny how we could identify where the Erasmus girls came from depending on their clubbing clothing. There is a bit of stereotyping here, because we all are different, but generalizing, CLUBBING STYLE:
French girls are UBBER CLASSY. Kitten heels, longer skirts, possibly flowy, shirts, nice hairdos without going over the top, modest in their manners, smiley and graceful yet a bit over-controlled.
German girls: Quite more careless about their style (you can see that too on the tourists). They really wore whatever they were happy with, probably what they had been wearing all day. I even saw a girl in a jumper and boots at a club. Nothing wrong with that, if it hadn't been extremely warm inside. They didn't usually take care of their hair either or make-up. They looked healthy and clean, but that was it.
Italian girls: I can't remember any in Cardiff. I do remember a couple of italian guys, but not women. The guys were... well, Italian. Fashionable and trendy and lovers of sunglasses.
British girls: I'll actually don't want to offend the British women here, so I'll specify and say 'female students at crazy Cardiff University'. Ok, now: they don't normally know how to dress themselves. The younger and crazier, the worst. I met some nice exceptions, but for the most part, super short and super tight skirts -if any- and strapless tops. They also tend to wear two sizes smaller than what they need -I can understand this in Spain because we don't have many sizes, but in the UK there is a huge range of sizes, so I don't get it- so there are lumps and bumps mostly everywhere. I can recall a girl wearing black hotpants (lingerie, I mean). And another one in a bikini. Oh, they also have a fascination with the cheeky Lolita style, so a lot of polka dots, and flowers, and ruffles, and mary janes, and pink lips, only they don't have the style, grace and class of Nabokov's character. They also like neon green and orange-orange plastic super high pumps. And yellow too. That said, I did like how they dressed in daytime. Somehow, they care less than Spanish people about what others may think or say, and thus they take more plunges and are trendier. I feel they were also way less judgmental than us, partly because they are more polite (aka. it's not that they like what you wear, but they are super nice about it anyway because that's how they were educated). I also liked that a size 18 girl could wear a miniskirt without people saying anything about it. This can't happen in Spain, the main reason being there are no miniskirts of that size, so I can't say what would happen, but probably people would stare in a rude way and judge.
Spanish girls: We either go over the top or stay minimal and comfortable. Or we try to do both and not always succeed. Many Spanish women are tacky. Not tacky in the British way, it's another style. I know fashion is very subjective, but really, some things are just a no-no, and some Spanish girls... well. Others went just really casual, with baggy jeans and such (where they were accepted), and they just wanted to be comfortable. Personally, I'm super shy when it comes to clubbing clothing and normally opt for something black on top and skinnies or a denim mini. I know, boring. I'll learn someday, I hope.
And here I end with my rant on European clubbing styles, which I don't know why I started, to begin with, but here it is. Hope someone reads it and enjoys it! I want to repeat this is SUPER SUBJECTIVE and it is MY OPINION, and hope nobody feels offended!
