Foreign fashion customs

And for like the tenth season in a row, burqas are the hottest fashion trend in Kabul. When you hold a fashion show in Afghanistan, you have to make sure that everything is appropriately covered, even when expatriate models are used. In terms of offensiveness, a bare arm or leg ranks right up there with that infamous photo of Paris Hilton forgetting to cover her gaping maw with underwear before getting out of a car. It just goes to show the importance of knowing your market and being sensitive to cultural norms and not googling randomly for pictures of Paris Hilton.


For example in Barcelona, lacy lingerie on its own is not considered appropriate when in polite company. You can easily avoid committing a devastating faux pas with a pair of fitted shorts.


But in other parts of Spain it is perfectly ok to place your bones prominently on display.


Turning to South America, there's no shame in wearing almost the same thing as your gal pals for a fun night out on an Argentinian town, as long as everyone chooses different coloured shoes.


Peru is slightly more liberal than most countries and the following meet the official definition of smart casual: cotton wool, shaving cream, whipped cream and soap suds.


If you plan on making a yearend visit to Bosnia, be forewarned that they take Christmas very seriously there and expect you to dress accordingly.


In Kiev they have a peculiar custom called Povkgkzoshzhenya which translates roughly into "you wear what you kill and what you can steal off a homeless person's back while they are sleeping".

Very instructive but a little confusing isn't it, considering we have barely scratched the surface of what other interesting cultural nuggets are out there. Sometimes it makes me want to pack up and move to somewhere diversely multicultural like Miami where you can afford to get everything mixed up and still be socially acceptable.



Next update: Friday July 14