Traditional lederhosen can cost up to €700 a pair, and one good beer spill can ruin them. So what are you going to wear to Oktoberfest? Austrian restaurant owner Peter Kolb has an alternative: swim trunks he designed that look like lederhosen will be on sale during Oktoberfest in Munich.
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"You wouldn't even need to wash the beer off, it's a fabric that dries immediately," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. The shorts look remarkably like the real thing, with elaborately embroidered deer heads, a front bib and traditional side stitching. They retail at €79, a fraction of the cost of the leather alternative.Alpine traditionalists who last year complained about the growing trend towards cheap lederhosen imported from Asia may cry heresy at the sight of Kolb's lederhosen. After all, they're manufactured in China and don't contain a scrap of leather.
But Kolb insists he is helping to introduce Alpine traditions to younger generations, and is even exporting the region's folk culture to a global audience.
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Ein, zwei, drei, fier...
Lift your stein and spill your beer!
Drink, drink, spill! on hosen from China
tailored to not show a stain!
Drink, drink, spill! on hosen you wear
at the pool or when caught in the rain!
Here's to hoping these new pants won't bind,
tightly, uncomfortably, soon around... mein...
Erm...
All I ask is the right to sport
these Asian-made, leder-less faux-leder shorts.
Drink! Drink! Let's make no offense!
Leder-free hosen at lower expense!
Drink, drink, drink!
Let every Alpiner his toasting commence!
Let's drink!
(If you don't get it, this might help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbLl2C3ChYY )