Germans- An Ausländer point of view (Part 1): Why don’t Germans wear colours?

When I visited Munich for the 1st time in 2010, one of things I noticed immediately that Germans have quite a conservative and binary wardrobe of black and white (with some 50 shades of grey thrown in between – pun not intended). Of course, all my 3 visits have been in winter, so it’s likely that the winter wardrobe, and not the entire wardrobe of Germans, resembles quite a bit like the landscape of a white winter. And even if you see colours, it is muted beiges and earthly browns and sometimes you manage to see a speck of red and purple which also is found only in female wardrobes.

Even children’s wardrobes are quite predictable: Shades of pink for the baby girls and shades of blue for the baby boys, not to forget the greys of course- for whoever prefers to be a little gender neutral (plus red and purple for the girls as is the case with the adults!)

Since I am from India, where both genders wear bright yellows, greens, blues, oranges, reds- not just in clothes but also in accessories such as bangles and turbans and combine hues like magenta and royal blue quite elegantly, my wardrobe during my first visit consisted mainly of these vibrant colour combinations and I stood out like a sore thumb on the streets or Christmas Markets of Munich and often felt awful because I was unable to blend in.

So can someone enlighten me: why don’t Germans wear colours?

Pragya