I’ve been in Lyon, France almost a week for work and yesterday afternoon I went shopping. I am here until Wednesday then off to The Netherlands for 3 days. Here’s a few observations I made over the past few days:

- people commuting on the metro were a sea of white, grey, light blue and soft black. Colors were rare, but some red and orange were spotted. Shoes were generally canvas sneakers or ballet flats. Few trends spotted. Lots of jeans. It’s hot so jackets and scarves were rare.
- at the research institute, fairly generic business casual (not surprising with a bunch of scientists). The administrative staff were the best dressed and incorporated trends like high waisted paper bag pants and interesting shoes.
- style got more interesting on Saturday. Ubiquitous waist surrendering summer dresses in all colors. Paper bag waist shorts. More color and shoe variety. Men often in knee length shorts. Statement t-shirts. I am not seeing much for cropped or wide leg styles.
-shops filled with unstructured flowy dresses of all lengths, high waisted paper bag pants, floral bottoms. I didn’t have much success, in part because the colors were wrong for me. I found several close but not quite right dresses (no petite size ranges so torso issues), but finally found one that had the waist definition that I like. A navy dress that I think will be timeless and is my version of an LBD.

Overall, I felt it was quite similar to what I see in the US. Generally a casual vibe, even for work, ubiquitous light colored jeans (usually skinny or straight, some lightly distressed), and light muted colors. One exception is that I fortunately don’t see leggings/jeggings worn as pants here.