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Wiesn
Column
Wiesn
Mr. Bootblack is a philosopher with distinct views of his own. He earns a living cleaning shoes. Once every two weeks he writes an article about footwear for GDS – and about the wearers.
Andrea has taken me along to the Oktoberfest, and it was an experience, that much I can say. The waitresses in the beer houses on third Avenue wore these bright, colourful dresses, which give them broad hips and a cleavage that looks like the balcony of the town Hall, on which the Yankees could someday present their cup to the city – if they were to win one some time. Andrea says that at the Oktoberfest in Bavaria, near Munich in a place called Wiesn, all the women wear such dresses, which I cannot imagine, but I understand the appeal. They look like apples in these outfits, and everyone likes apples. Next to me two men were drinking beer out of giant glasses, in fact they were more like buckets rather than glasses, and the music was something for soldiers to dance to. A kind of Polka. I don’t know if such music is ever played outside of beer houses, but I actually hope it isn‘t. It was strange, but in a way also wonderful. The sausage was good, – a genuine German grilled sausage I think, and a couple of men were wearing a kind of tight knickerbockers in coarse leather, with knee socks and sturdy shoes. The clothes, says Andrea, are the ones worn by farmers, in any case by farmers in Bavaria in the past, or at least in Wiesn. And that is a splendid idea. I know only two types of fashion, which I understand, and this is a third.
We have learnt, at least we men, to orientate ourselves on things that look fine and elegant. Everything begins with the suit, and the more formal men’s fashion becomes, the more elegant, and the more it conceals all those areas, where the person inside could be exposed, where work becomes visible. The tie covers the button border, and from there it’s up to the dinner jacket, where the shirt and jacket no longer have any button borders, where even the trouser button is concealed by the cummerbund. That is the beginning of all fashion, at least as far as men’s fashion is concerned: people’s shortcomings are concealed. The only other general trend, which has existed since that time, was in the 70s and 80s down in a club on the Bowery. In those days the young people tore their clothes and then patched them up with safety pins, shaved crazy patterns into their hair and called themselves punks. Everything else that has happened, at least in men’s fashion, is always simply a variation on these two themes. Apart, apparently, from this small German town called Wiesn: celebrating the farmers’ fashion, in other words coming out of the office and putting on the clothes worn by the people of the land, is a symbol after all.
Andrea did not understand what I was saying here. She said it was only a tradition. Something like a Christmas tree. But I can’t believe that. Perhaps I’ll apply again for a passport in my old age after all and go there to have a look. I mean: the apple women really look very good, and even the dreadful music has something about it – at the latest when you have drunk two buckets of this really good beer.
