Trends we spotted at the Munich Strong Beer Festival 2016

Now, obviously, we do enjoy a nice, frothy tankard of Salvator strongbrew and, of course, the Nockherberg beer hall is a fantastic location at any time; and we like to practice our German by listening to all of the songs and cabaret sets that we don’t understand (who wouldn’t?); and, finally, I think you’ll believe us when we say that we also spend plenty of time in other beerhalls whenever we make it to Munich, especially during the Strong Beer Festival 2016…

For us, though, to real highlight of these spring festivities is the fashion: apart from the Oktoberfest itself, there is no other time that you see so much genuine Bavarian clothing being worn around Munich; this makes it a kind of trend laboratory in which new ideas are tested out six months ahead of the city’s bigger beer festival.

So what can we reveal to you about what will be in fashion later this year based on what we’ve seen in recent days during out visit? Well, plenty. Above all: the future looks a bit washed out, grey, dark – black, even, in some cases.

That may sound awful, but it’s not: we’re talking about colours specifically, not overall prospects. The reason is that colours really are the biggest change this year: although there have already been several shifts away from the brightest, brashest colours in recent years – although neon has retreated to sports clothing, leaving Tracht untouched – this year really marks a break.

The new colours suit the far more natural, almost vintage look of the trendiest new pieces. Dirndls are carrying two or more floral patterns (apron and bodice often have to different designs) and a range of intricate details such as embroidery; meanwhile, in men’s fashion, the shirts are going ever more towards traditional linen and cotton models with granddad-style button fronts down to the belly-button. Given this, anything except traditional shades would look out of place.

This means a lot of washed-out blue for the boys and a range of hay, honey, and wooden colour tones for the girls. As well as colours your grandparents would wear, cardigans too have made an even stronger comeback than in recent seasons (“It’s cold out, do put on something warm!”), and petticoats are bigger than ever for the girls. Not, however, that hemlines have plunged to match granny’s wardrobe: while the current preference for 60-70cm skirts makes the shorter models popular a few years back suddenly look quite trashy, no-one is going ankle length… Similarly, the continuing range of t-shirts with Bavarian dialect prints on them and jeans masquerading as lederhosen are certainly something that no granddad would give the time of day to.

After all, history may repeat itself – but it never repeats itself in exactly the same way. In that respect, it’s similar to the Strong Beer Season itself: it’s great every time, but always somewhat different… Our Munich Strong Beer Festival 2016, for example, was certainly not an exact repeat of last year’s: we managed to get through it without dropping a phone, losing a jacket, or any of the other various small annoyances that generally accompany these kinds of beer-fuelled adventures!