Fashion

It's difficult to generalize about such a broad topic as fashion, but it is worth noting that people do dress differently here. So this will mostly be a somewhat random set of observations about Latvian and, by extension, European dress.

In general, I would say that there is more dressing up in Latvia. Not that you can judge this by my students, who dress pretty much like college students anywhere, in very comfortable, casual clothes. But the faculty and administrators are often very smart and polished. My dean is always in a very tailored suit or jacket and skirt; some of the male faculty are in a jacket and tie every day, as is my colleague and French professor Sergejis. My own colleagues on the English faculty are a little more casual, often showing up in jeans and comfortable blouses, suggesting perhaps that dealing with literature is a messy business that requires rolling up one's sleeves. I took my cues from them and sometimes wear jeans with natty print shirts in an attempt to look a bit more professional than my students.

There are also more occasions to dress up in Latvia, I think. I love seeing high schoolers out on the town. The young men are often in suits that sometimes come in very cool colors: royal blue, green, burgundy -- and bow ties, which are catching on in a big way here in the Baltics. Young women are often in long, floor-length skirts with dressy blouses. You see this more often than you might expect, and I think that they are often going to a concert or a dance or something. The fact that cultural events are far easier to afford in Latvia might be a contributing factor, and I expect that it is. Here, there is a real sense that an occasion demands proper dress, a sense that I think young people in the United States don't observe quite as much. Or maybe I just live in Maine, where the weather dictates fashion more than anything.

Incomes are not as high in Latvia as they are in the Unites States, but this fact certainly doesn't stop people from indulging in good clothes or, more accurately, good looks. I am impressed with and sort of overwhelmed by the number of secondhand stores in Daugavpils, and they have very good stuff in them. If one is willing to go through lots of racks of things with patience and a practiced eye, looking for the right piece -- and many Latvians clearly are willing, judging by the customers that I see in the stores -- one can easily put together very fashionable, very well turned-out ensembles. I am constantly surprised to see a woman wearing just the right boots striding confidently, a man with just the right scarf knotted just so, the neatly pressed shirt, the perfect pin on the perfect lapel. People here devote some time to looking good, and it shows.

There's also a certain number of men who go out in public in their athletic track suits. Adidas seems to be the brand of choice. You American readers have seen these guys in malls all across America, and they generally look sloppy. For some reason, as casual as this outfit is, Latvian men do not look nearly as slovenly as many American men do. In part this is because Latvian men are generally trim; obesity is not nearly as great an issue as it is in overfed America.

I am sort of surprised that I am paying attention to women's clothes because this is something that I normally don't care a lot about. This winter, I was totally smitten with women's winter coats. This is truly a first for me, and it is because in Latvia they come in wonderful, delicious, ice cream sherbet colors. They are also cut in very flattering ways, as are women's dresses. You see a lot of cuts that are right out of a 1950s department store like B. Altman; the Mad Men look for women is alive and well in Latvia. There are also plenty of floral prints that are really pretty wonderful. Of course, you can find these anywhere; I just noticed them more here because they seem so prevalent. I might go so far as to generalize that dressing in a traditionally feminine way is very much the norm in Latvia. This is not a criticism of my women friends who don't care for feminine clothing for any number of reasons; one can dress to please oneself and always look good. But femininity seems to sell here, it sells well, and it looks great.

One thing that I have noticed on young men, as well as some older men who perhaps should know better, is the very tight, pegged jeans look. This, I believe, is a Euro-style: jeans that are tight in the waist, loose in the back, and very tight down the legs all the way to the ankles. Some jeans actually look like tights, and I can only assume that they are part stretch fabric; it's the only way one could actually get them on. A couple of decades ago in the States, Levi Strauss, recognizing that American men were getting wider and wider, created a line of jeans that has, as the company put it, a little more "skoosh" in the fit. Baggier jeans have been the norm since, at least outside of urban areas, in recognition that we eat too much. But not here; tight, tight jeans are de rigeur for the average Russian teenager. If you don't have several pair, you are not allowed to live here.

If one doesn't wear tight jeans, one wears what I would call over-engineered jeans. They can't just have a pocket in back; there must be a smaller pocket sewn on the bigger pocket. Or the legs are gathered into an elastic band like you find on sweatshirts at the ankle. Or they are carefully bleached on the front of the legs, the back, and at the knee to give them that worn look. Or they have fancy stitching somewhere in a place where nothing is clearly being stitched together. Plain jeans that are just, well, jeans are maybe illegal. 

Latvia is the world capital of truly fashionable eyewear. I have had the same kind of glasses for decades now, with one brief foray into 1950s-type Elvis Costello glasses which my optometrist stopped carrying in a size that fit my face. (I am still bitter about this.) But I feel positively dowdy in Latvia, where everybody who wears glasses has something retro, futuristic, or otherwise totally rockin'. 

I really like the fact that at the pool, there is simply none of the obsessive body image issues that we see too much in the States. I am sure that there are Latvians obsessed with how they look, as the gyms here are full of people working out, and at least one of them is devoted to serious bodybuilders. But at my community pool, who cares? Lovely old women show up in flowered swim caps and ancient swimsuits. Men wear their Soviet-era trunks that have seen better days, or more to the point, better decades. Everybody goes to the sauna to relax, and who cares what we look like? We are here to swim. There seems to be less body consciousness in Latvia, which is a good thing, I think -- a recognition that people properly come in all shapes and sizes, and that's the way it's supposed to be.