A guide to buying tracht (dirndl and lederhosen) in Kaiserlautern

Dirndls available at C&A.

With Oktoberfest coming up, many people who ordinarily wouldn't have anything to do with tracht (traditional German dress) are searching for some dirndl and lederhosen to participate in Oktoberfest. Tracht can be very expensive for the higher quality items but there are some lower-priced options as well. Below are some ideas of where to buy tracht around Kaiserslautern and beyond.

-The cheapest option is to check out Ethnico, which is an unusual but super interesting store in Kaiserslautern. They sell all sorts of interesting things, such as furniture, brand new hippie-style clothing, African masks, and so on. Most interesting of all (for the purposes of this blog entry, at least) are the previously owned dirndl and lederhosen. I've seen lederhosen start at about 20 euros for children's sizes and the prices go up from there. One can save quite a bit of money compared to buying new. (Read my blog entry about Ethnico here)

-Right now, some of the chain clothing stores have tracht available. I stopped by the C&A in Kaiserslautern, which is a chain of clothing stores in many larger German cities, and they had a selection that included dirndls, lederhosen, the appropriate shirts to go with both, shoes, and for the men, knee high socks. Dirndls ran about 120 euros and up; lederhosen started at just below 100 euros for the shorts-length pairs. 

-The BX in Ramstein currently has a vendor selling tracht.

-Farther afield and more expensive, there are specialty stores such as Angermaier, that sell more expensive but better made tracht. I window shopped at the Angermaier store in Stuttgart and admired the beautifully constructed dirndls and lederhosen.The prices reflected the higher quality; I saw items starting in the hundreds of euros and even going up to a thousand euros or so. (Read my blog entry about Angermaier here)

-Thrift stores in bigger cities might yield tracht as well. I bought my dirndl at the Humana thrift store in Berlin. I paid 50 euros and it was new, I believe; I imagine it might have been overstock donated by a store.

**This is post was not sponsored by any of these stores. Opinions are my own and this is for information only, not as an endorsement of any particular store.**