I just came back from a brief business trip to Munich and wanted to share some notes on fashion and styles I observed. It was an awesome five days; Munich is soooo beautiful, and the weather was pretty nice so I spent a few of my non-working hours outside strolling through the pedestrian zone, shopping, and people watching. Here are the trends I saw – many of them familiar, some of them different, some of them more pronounced than here in the US.

• Boots boots boots, with skinnies and skirts. I saw so many amazing boots over skinnies and with skirts, it was definitely the biggest and fabbest trend. I drooled over a lot of them, including a pair of deep red cracked patent leather riding boots. Skinnies were everywhere, rarely a boot cut in sight. Skirts were very popular as well, both pencil and shorter A-lines with some pleats in fall fabrics like tweed, herringbone, houndstooth.
• The color purple. Purple was the biggest color in addition to lots of black and grey. There were several small boutiques that literally didn’t carry things in colors other than black, grey and purple. Secondary colors were fuchsia, teal, mustard yellow and green. Very little red and blue, and not as much brown and beige as in previous fall/winter seasons.
• Micro check pants with Converse. This was the other “uniform” amongst hip city gals. If they weren’t wearing skinnies with boots they were most likely wearing micro checks with fashion sneakers. I saw a lot of “pimped up” Converse, e.g. with patent or faux croc uppers. Fun!
• Cropped leather jackets and tailored coats. As outerwear, the two biggest trends were cropped leather jackets (sooo fab, as I know many of you agree with) and tailored coats, many of them in herringbone but not just in the more traditional black/grey/white but often in bright colors like purple or green. Loved those and was quite tempted (all my own fall and winter jackets are black or dark grey, so I was very intrigued, but I really couldn’t justify spending money on a new coat.) And of course everyone wore great scarves.
• Knit vests and v-necks over button-downs. This was quite prevalent and looked fun and fab in a preppy way.
• Denim skirts over black tights. This was a look I hadn’t seen in the US, but I saw it both in stores and on the streets in Munich. The denim skirts were straight and above the knee, in medium blue wash. It’s a look that’s harder to pull off, but I saw it work well on a few women.
• Sleeveless winter dresses over button downs or turtle necks. I think there is a word that better describes this than the generic “dress”; it was definitely intended to only be worn over something. A very stylish look, loved it.

Finally, of course there was a lot of “Tracht”, the traditional Bavarian dress. Since I was there at the height of Octoberfest, there were more Dirndls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirndl) and Lederhosen out on the streets than usual (though you do see them in Munich at any time of year), and I saw a lot of very traditional ones as well as updated ones. I even learned a new phrase: ”pimp your Dirndl”, which refers to taking a traditional Dirndl and styling it in a way that is hip and fashionable. The Dirndl has become quite a “fashion item” again in recent years, and women whom I would never expected to own a Dirndl, like my very hip and trendy colleague in Munich, sport a “pimped” Dirndl for special events.

I definitely caused some damage to my wallet in Munich, shopping for button downs at Ludwig Beck (a high end department store in the center of the city), Mexx, and local boutiques in Schwabing; no-wool cardi and other knits at Zara; and a shoe store where I got booties. Now that I’m back and not travelling for while, I’ll set up the new camera and finally post a few fall outfit pictures.

Munich was wonderful – if anyone gets a chance to go, let me know and I can give you some tips on good shopping areas (and sightseeing, too, of course :-))!