Dirndl Day!

Its official, I am now a real Austrian "Mädl".  I speak with a dialect, I love schnitzel, the stench of cow manure doesn't phase me, and today I bought myself a dirndl.  A dirndl is the Austrian traditional dress (called tracht) for women.  The men wear ornate hunting lederhosen with buttons made from deer horns.  No, lederhosen aren't a silly Hollywood invention, German and Austrian men actually still wear them today!  And I have to hand it to the Austrian people, they really have found a way to take an ancient Alpine tradition that can sometimes look archaic and outdated and make it trendy!  This might be what you think of when you think lederhosen, along with lots of wurst and beer:

But lederhosen can actually be quite attractive, as so dashingly displayed by Johann here ;)  Austrian girls think so at least, and around age 18-20 almost every Austrian boy gets his first pair of real lederhosen.

Same goes for dirndls.  While feminists would balk at the idea of wearing a dress that was designed for a cooking, cleaning, bread-baking, baby-making Hausfrau, modern Austrian women wear their dirndls with pride!  Some dirndls, in my opinion, can look very outdated and matronly,

There are lots of more modern styles that are incredibly cute and very wearable!  While I find many reasons not to be a Paris Hilton fan, I had to give her props when she rocked this awesome golden dirndl to Oktoberfest in 2006, inciting a resurgence in the popularity of the dirndl.

I wanted one that was a little shorter and one that was spring/summertime appropriate.  So Kiley and I went to Eugendorf after my classes were over today, a little town just outside of Salzburg, to an outlet that's far enough away from the tourist crowds where they have tracht outfits for reasonable prices.  

This one was a little too costumey for me, 

Same with this one.

I loved this one, the colors were beautiful but it was waaay overpriced.

After hours of driving and searching through two different outlets, zipping ourselves into hundreds of dirndls, fastening and un-fastening countless rows of buttons, I finally found it!!  The perfect dirndl :)

It was love at first sight!  I'm planning on wearing it to my host dad Gerd's 60th birthday bash this weekend, I can't wait!  I also think I could wear it around Memphis, it'd cause quite a scene!  I love it!