Buenos Aires funny fashion

Hey friends,

So I wanted to get a post out about what life is like in a new and foreign city. I think one of the first things most people, myself included, notice about a new place is the people. Are they similar to me and my friends? how do they dress? How do they behave? what features do they have? What are they into? How do they spend their time?

I could write a novel of a post covering all of these topics, which I doubt anyone would have the patience to read, so I'll try to narrow my focus. While some of these questions require time and exposure to be able to solve, I think that typically the first to be answered is simply how do these people look, and compared to what I'm used to how do they differ. I think you would be hard pressed to travel to a new land and not immediately notice how the locals dress and present themselves, and the contrasts that are drawn between their and your culture. Buenos Aires is certainly no exception.

I'm no expert on the topic, and don't want to just rant about every single difference I've seen or every time I've seen someone dressed in public and couldn't help but think "...what the hell?". Beyond the expected terrible male haircuts (think rat tails, mullets, comb overs, and some of the best and worst dreads you've ever seen) and sometimes questionable female dress (Aladdin style parachute pants, leather pants, and just overwhelming schmorgisborg of accessories) I'll let you guys in on a few trends I've noticed down here that I've found particularly interesting or peculiar.

First off, women down here really take care of themselves. There's a certain level of vanity that pervades the culture. Argentines, believe it or not, are actually covered for one plastic surgery per year under their health care coverage. Even their president, Cristina Fernanda de Kirchner, is no exception.

Cristina pre-augmentation (or at least, pre-currently augmented state)

current day Cristina. Would you believe this woman is 58?

Either the nation's leader has been hitting the botox, or Cristina sold her soul and Argentina is now being run by an evil undead succubus. I've asked many Argentines this question, yet no one seems to have any answers.

This reminds me of a short anecdote from one of my early English classes I taught here. I was starting with a new student; a 29 year old bleach blonde Argentine employed by the city government as their chief of communication. I usually start off my first lesson with any student with about 15 minutes of conversation, just to get some background on the student and see how they can manage and manipulate the language to express themselves. Our first conversation went a little like this:

Me: So what did you do this weekend?

Her: (Points to chest just under collarbone with both hands) Red...Bread...
Me: Huh?...red?
Her: Yes, bread...red...
Me: (Noticing her skin is very red, appears sun burnt) Oh, did you get a sunburn? red from a sunburn??
Her: (noticeably frustrated with her inability to communicate her idea) Hmm... no... (proceeds to grab breasts with both hands and thrusts them upwards) ...MORE TITS!!!

She had gotten breast (the word she was looking for earlier) implants over the weekend, and was trying to show me her proud new additions. This was in no way uncomfortable for her or any kind of come on, but just the news from over the weekend. She pulled aside the straps of her shirt to show me the bandages she still had from the procedure, and we went on to discuss the popularity of plastic surgery in Buenos Aires and the world. What a way to kick off a first class, eh?

Anyways, here are another couple trends you're bound to notice in under 5 minutes in this city that I've found interesting, if not baffling.

Argentine women take great care of their hair. I would say that the average girl has hair at least 50 percent longer than that of the American girl, and it' always smooth and shiny. While this looks great on a lot of the girls here, there's a wildly popular trend that I personally think ruins the whole look; the epic straight bangs.

Sure, some girls can pull it off but the sheer number of girls here that sport this style is baffling.

This is what I'm talking about:

Maybe this is just a personal thing, but I find that this just makes it look like most girls here don't have eyebrows, which kind of freaks me out.

on the left: how pretty Argentine women are
on the right: how I perceive women that cover their entire forehead with an impenetrable blockade of over conditioned hair. kinda freaky looking, right?

This city has a great counter culture, and it's not uncommon to see individuals with tons of tattoos and piercings. While there's always a spectrum of taste and class when applying such decorations to the skin, sometimes certain fads gain traction that are...harder to explain than others. I'll be the first to admit that my cultural background and comfort zone impacts my opinions on these sorts of matters, but there's a specific trend that I have not been able to wrap my brain around that maybe you guys will find interesting too; the mid lip piercing.

Now in theory, there's nothing terribly wrong with this choice. If I saw the occasional hoodlum with an unfortunate piercing I'd probably just ignore it, but when you hop on a subway train and almost half the young people you see have some sort of metallic mole adorning their face it's hard to not wonder what these kid are thinking. These piercings often come in 2's or 3's, and I'm told are more indicative of the lower class style of presentation.

While this guy may have a few more than most, this would not at all be a peculiar site in this city.

With any of these kind of image decisions it's easy to just dismiss them as misguided choices, until you realize that if this many people sport these kinds of looks that means that there are groups of people that actually think that they look COOL. Trying to keep this thought in mind and just walking around the city is always good for a few laughs. Given, if I were to have a conversation with any of these individuals about their perceptions of how I present myself I'm sure they too would laugh over my misguided choices. It's all a matter of perspective.

Until next time, and if you made it this far thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!