Nuuk's fashion

As I mentioned previously I promised to write a bit about the fashion here in Nuuk and for good reason too. Because although the fashion might be fairly similar as to the rest of the West European world there certainly also some differences, which I believe to be specific types of Greenlandic fashion.

Nuuk has a fairly good variety of stores and it is therefore possible to get hold of most of the latest fashion. Adults seem less than interested in acquiring the newest trend but teenagers are all for it. They’re dressed exactly the same way as they would be in any other big city in Europe. The only thing that is slightly different in their style is perhaps their overcoats. Here, everybody either wears a North Face jacket or a Canada Goose jacket. And I mean everybody. It doesn’t matter if you 65 or if you’re barely a 1 year. You still wear one of these jackets. They even come as romper suits (sparkedragt) for babies, something I’ve never seen before. (Btw 65 might not sound old but people here don’t live to be much older so it is sort of the limit).

Babies and young children are also seen wrapped up in various kind of sealskin clothing and they look absolutely adorable. They look like cute little baby seals. Although skin is still very popular among people here most tend to just wear a pair of sealskin gloves or skin hat. Some also wear jackets but you never see people dressed from head to toe in sealskin. Sealskin btw comes not only in various patterns it also comes in various colours. At the time it seems very popular to wear red (mailbox red) skin hats and purple skin gloves/jackets. Personally, I find it a bit strange to dye the beautiful skin any of those colours but I guess that’s just because I’m still not used to seeing skin as a clothes fabric. Another skin item that is frequently seen and that I wouldn’t mind owning myself is skin boats. They come in various shapes and sizes and some of them are really beautiful. Again red seems to be the preferred colour but of course who says you have to follow the trend:-)

Even though skin items are very popular and the material is easy to come by the prices are certainly not for everybody. A pair of gloves is about 250-450kr (30-60€) and the same for a hat. The boats are from 800kr and up to 3000kr (100-400€). And a jacket is about 15.000-20.000kr (2000-2700€), so you might want to think twice before you wrapped yourself up in one of nature’s furry friends. Of course the Greenlanders hunt themselves and therefore often sew their own skin clothing or at least they get them done cheaper at locale workshops because they supply the skin themselves.

At work there’s not really such a thing as a proper dress code. People sometimes look like they chose their clothes in the dark. I especially like the combination of sneakers, a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, an open washed out short-sleeved shirt combined with a colourful tie. I’ve never seen that combination before and I’ve decided to put it down as a unique type of Nuuk fashion. It’s very popular among the men, young as old, low incomers or CEOs. It certainly noticeable, though I’m not quite sure I like it. Everybody are dressed very causal at work (although not necessarily as causal as described above) and even when there are prominent guests visiting no formalities in clothing is seen. A couple of weeks ago Naalakkersuisut (the home government) was visited by a group of people from the OECD and although I had nothing to do with them and really knew none of the people working in Naalakkersuisut, it was still quite clear who was a visitor and who was a regular worker. All you had to do was look at the style of dressing:-)

One can also see the peculiar choice of style when one sees people’s washing hanging outside. The interesting choice in colour combination seems to exist in other areas than just clothing, such as bed sheets, curtains and towels. I’m all for a bit of colour in the daily life but why would you like to have pink and green curtains, orange towels, and brown and yellow sheets? After having seen combinations as the one above and others equally bizarre I can’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, a rather large portion of Nuuk’s population suffers from colour blindness...