Help me buy a work wardrobe for my new job in Germany.

May 14, 2007 12:24 PM

I'll be starting a new job in Germany soon. Conservative dress (read: a suit) is expected. AskMe Germans, expats, and/or fashion mavens, please help me figure out what I can buy online or in the USA that won't look too out of place in Deutschland. Danke!

Even in settings where international standard business attire is the dress code, I've noticed that work wardrobes can vary greatly from country to country. Suits are cut differently, colors have different meanings, shoes look different....you get the idea.

I'm leaving for Germany soon. I need to shop for a work wardrobe before I get there. I won't be able to go shopping until at least a few weeks after I arrive, and I need appropriate clothes to wear immediately.

If you've ever worked in a German office, or if you've spent time in Germany and have seen people wearing suits, or if you've never been to Germany but happen to know about international differences in dress, please help me figure out what I should be looking for. (Note: I'm female.) Do women wear pantsuits? What colors and patterns are common? How long are skirts? Shells or shirts? Flats, low heels, or high heels? Googling hasn't yielded much for me, but if there's info out there that I haven't found, links would be appreciated too.

Some specifics:
* I don't want to spend loads of money, as I'm not likely to be wearing these clothes years into the future.
* I like to be as comfortable as possible. I don't have any other major constraints--I don't need a hard-to-find size, I don't have a deep hatred of or affinity for any particular color, etc.

Thank you.

posted by barelylegalrealist to clothing, beauty, & fashion (8 comments total)

North or south of Germany?
posted by watsondog at 12:30 PM on May 14, 2007

My Danish freind who spent a long time working in Germany would wear nothing but Hugo Boss, and that worked out well for him. This was in Munich.
posted by Artw at 12:32 PM on May 14, 2007

I'll be in Frankfurt.
posted by barelylegalrealist at 12:36 PM on May 14, 2007

The Culture Shock guides are often good for this sort of question.
posted by occhiblu at 12:40 PM on May 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

Man, they've got some pretty cool clothes there. You might want to wait and buy something in Germany.
posted by chuckdarwin at 12:44 PM on May 14, 2007

From my (admittedly limited) professional experience in Germany:

- suits tend to be cut much less loosely than in the States
- black suit, two or three buttons, with a white/blue shirt is perfectly fine (there are no funeral or black tie connotations to black suits)
- the black leathery shoes that you sometimes wear in the States, looking a bit like a cross between fancy shoes and sneakers: don't bring these, wear "real" leather shoes.

And if you do get to shop in D-Land: Metzingen is not that far from Frankfurt, and they have huge outlet stores selling Hugo Boss suits and similar at reasonable prices.
posted by insouciant at 1:01 PM on May 14, 2007

In the two German IT workplaces I’ve worked in, most people have dressed badly, with the exception of visitors from my current company’s Japanese parent company, who’ve all been careful about their suits. The sales folk in the less IT-oriented part of a sister company are also conscientious, but not as much so as the folk from Osaka.

At client sites; an electronics component manufacturing plant on the Swiss border had generally formal dress among those not on the factory floor, including the IT people, and a university in Aachen seemed to have general academic we-don’t-really-care-about-how-we-look norms.

When people wear suits, women wear pantsuits. Since university tends to end around 28 or so, the professional working world is skewed older (than Ireland [where I’m from] or the US), and the women I’ve worked with have been mostly 35 and older, and they go for short hair and pinstripes. If you’re under 30 and attractive (and not just in the your-female-friends-reassure-you-about-it sense) you don’t need to worry about the details of styles, you’ll make a good impression if you wear the clothes you’ve brought from the US.

My understanding is that when it comes to skirt lengths, heel heights and that sort of thing, Germany is more easygoing (think; more tolerant of the fashion choices of someone who cuts her hair herself, and not with scissors) than the US. This is not so true of the former DDR, where, in common with the rest of the former Communist world there's more emphasis put on indexes of femininity like high heels and short skirts. But the successful business culture in the Germany of today is not from the DDR, and it won’t be an issue in Frankfurt am Main. In general, you’re more likely to think to yourself ‘what is she thinking!?!’ of a local than vice-versa.

Of course, I’m male, and making decisions based on this understanding has not been immensely relevant to my daily life, so take that with a grain of salt.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 1:18 PM on May 14, 2007

http://www.germany.info/relaunch/culture/life/Fashion.html

this could help once you start buying there

http://german.about.com/library/blmode01.htm
posted by Salvatorparadise at 3:33 PM on May 14, 2007