Oktoberfest Chafes at Chinese Lederhosen

Munich folk societies warn that Bavaria's heritage is imperiled by cheap Lederhosen made in China, India, and Eastern Europe

By David Crossland

Visitors to the opening weekend of the Munich Oktoberfest did their best to live up to the festival's proud traditions by guzzling 450,000 liters of beer and devouring 11 oxen, and the organizers expect to have served six million liters by the time the world's biggest beer party ends on Oct. 5.

At the stroke of midday on Saturday the oompah bands started up as usual and the waitresses in their Dirndl dresses began heaving handfuls of one-liter Mass glasses of rich Munich beer through the 14 giant tents. Locals and tourists from around the world climbed up onto the rough wooden tables to drink and dance their way into oblivion.

The opening of the festival was marked by two parades through Munich on Saturday and Sunday to showcase Bavaria's rich regional pageantry of folk costumes. Hundreds of thousands lined the streets to watch the processions and 900,000 visited the Oktoberfest over the weekend, the organizers said. Many tents were so full that they had to close their doors.

One might think, therefore, that everything is in order in this Alpine state that accounts for so much of Germany's national identity.

Not so, say Bavarian purists, who have warned that Bavaria's proud heritage is under threat from cheap imported Lederhosen and Dirndl dresses made in China, India and Eastern Europe.

And indeed, Munich's department stores and fashion boutiques admit that many of the outfits on sale are made from imported leather and fabrics or manufactured abroad to save costs.

Sacrilege

"We produce in the Czech Republic and Poland and the fabrics for the Dirndls come from Italy, China and Turkey," Harald Rupp of the textile firm Spieth und Wensky, which supplies Dirndl fashions to Munich stores, told Die Welt newspaper. And the leather for its Lederhosen doesn't come from deer shot on misty mornings in Bavarian forests, but from Italy and India.

For the protectors of Bavarian heritage, that is sacrilege.

The folk costumes worn by many locals to the Oktoberfest are "yuppie outfits" that have nothing to do with original Bavarian dress, says Otto Dufter, chairman of the Bavarian Federation of Folk Costume Societies. "Our societies only use the domestic Lederhosen makers, we don't use any pseudo-costumes made abroad," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Hans Lehrer, a member of the Munich-based Isargau folk costume society and a former spokesman for the federation, said: "Folk costumes should be made where they're worn. I've got a problem with imported folk dress because heritage refers to one's homeland. If people buy Lederhosen made in Romania just because that's cheaper, I'm opposed to that."

Lehrer said a good pair of embroidered deer-leather short Lederhosen made by a Bavarian tailor would cost at least €600, while imported Lederhosen costs just €150. But it was worth paying the extra money, he added. "A good Lederhose is like a second skin and it will last you your whole life if you don't get too fat."

Alexander Wandinger, an expert on Bavarian folk dress, said: "Lederhosen made in India and all over the place may be fine for the Oktoberfest but it has nothing to do with true folk costume."

Victims of Globalization

Low-cost foreign competition had forced many German textile firms out of business over the years and had also hit Bavaria's costume makers, said Mr. Wandinger, head of the Bavarian Folk Costume Information Centre, which researches Bavarian heritage and gives advice on where to buy true folk costumes.

He said there were fewer than 100 true Lederhosen makers left in Bavaria now.

The fine lace and embroidered leather costumes originate from the clothing worn by Bavaria's mountain farmers. Many designs derive from the 19th century, when they became fashionable among the Bavarian and Austrian aristocracy.

Motivated by a surge in national pride across Europe, dozens of folk societies were set up in the 19th and early 20th centuries to stage parades at festivals across Bavaria, including at the Oktoberfest.