Fashion in Odessa

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Rule number 1:

For woman - rule number one when going out at night - dress hot, very hot, the hotter the better. Mini-mini skirts, skin tight jeans, spandex, thongs, skin tight dresses and no bras. Do guys dress hot? Umm, sorry, I was distracted, what was the question, again?

Rule number 2:

It’s always a safe bet to err on the side of stylish, brand name designer clothes. Dolce and Gabbana, Chanel, Gucci. The average income here is quite low. Doctors make $250 US per month. I asked Max how the women here can afford such beautiful clothes and he said either they spend all their money on clothes and going to the salon once a week, work extra shifts and hours or get a “sponsor”. Perfect nails, hair, make-up if you are going out in the evening. Salons are cheap here, but clothes and fashion accessories are not. So I figure the woman are incredibly hot and fit because they can’t buy enough food to have to worry about putting on weight. We read a little book on dating Russian woman and it said Russian men will blow most of their salary on a single date in order to treat their lady in style and will go hungry for the rest of the month if necessary. Going back to rule number 1 that seems entirely plausible to me.

Rule number 3:

For men and woman, if you have a shirt with writing on it the writing must be in English, or occasionally, what I like to call Ukelish. Almost nobody here speaks English. I noticed this right away because I thought it would be cool to buy a hip T-shirt or brand that had Cyrillic writing but it seems there are none to be found. If you go to a newspaper stand ALL the magazines and newspapers are in Russian.
I’ve come to the conclusion that every few people here understand what the words on their clothes actually say. Either that or their audacity and attitude has got to be admired. For guys, it seems it is preferable if the words on the back on the shirt.
Here are some of the guy’s shirts I’ve seen:

“The captain first before the god” - apparently a reference to recent Russian submariner movie.

“Graffiti change my life”

“Network Children” - wtf - I’m not sure I want to know.

“Fuck you and the world” - in sequin silver letters on a black T-shirt seen worn by a young, highly intoxicated, skinny, little guy in a nightclub.

“Good Fucker”

“TEACHER FUCKER” worn by a young stud in a club.

And finally, the ultimate shirt when surrounded by beautiful woman with attitude:
“Good evening bitch”

For ladies shirts seem to fall into two categories the, cute, but weird category with captions like:

“Love Travel and Care”

“Mice Will Play”

“Baby Cat”

“Luxury diva”

“No Skeletons” seen on a t-shirt with 12 pokeman characters


The second category is ladies baby girl T-shirts with definite sexual innuendoes, whether intentional or not, I’m not sure.

“Touch me” in sequined letters

“FOR YOU” in big letters across the chest of a very well endowed lady and smaller letters across her belly a happy face with the words “splendid smile”

“No Silcone” seen worn by, well, use your imagination

worn in a nightclub “What we do now?”

“Nobody’s perfect (but me)”

“Stop staring and buy me a drink”

and, finally, my favorite, worn by a very sexy lady in a popular nightclub
“You want some of this?” strategically placed across her breasts,
and on the back when she turned around “Fuck you”.

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Comments

[didfrost]

I am not virgin
Once walking in the local park, I met person who was on my opinion very modest and not so young and light-headed girl/woman. On her T-shirt was written: I am not virgin. At that same moment I began to muse about most suitable variant of translation this phrase onto Ukraine language and didnt dare to talk to this person for opening her eyes on inscription meaning. Let her relative and friends do such delicate task, I thought at that moment. Later I had told about my meeting with curious T-shirt to my wife. And my wife told to her female friends. After that they sometime came to us and ask me to translate writing on their T-shirt.

[hanna]

for sure the girl knew the "real meaning' of her T-shirt ...its just that young people like to make laugh puting on czary stuff ... but for sure, old people don't speak english, they never had a strong need for that... in a subway a ...60-65 years old lady had on her white T-shit had written in black: HOT AND WILD!

[Born to travel]

Hilarious!
As a female traveller, it is quite unnerving to be surrounded by what looks like hookers all the time! Wearing flip flops and baggy trousers, I feel so under dressed compared to these divas! Love your blog, though, it is soooo true!!!

[Tim]

Odessa in a wheelchair?
Benj You went to Odessa in a chair??? How was it getting around? Anyinfo would be awesome. -tim