Money is nothing, Image is everything!

At least thats the situation here in Serbia. One would think that the less money people have, the less they care about clothing and image. But Serbia proves different. Walking around around in the streets of Belgrade it seems you are in a pretty wealthy country sometimes. At least when one looks at the way ženu (females) are dressing. Miss sixty pants our maybe Miss Sexy (or something like that) as a local shop here was called.

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When Stine (my team partner) was wearing rainpants the other day, and half of the people in the street started turning their heads to observe the not fashionable pants. Talking to the locals it turnes out that before the war, when Serbia could be thought of as a pretty rich country, all weather jackets and rain pants where very common. But after the war people cared more about looks and image.

The media and all commercials are very much focused on body, looks and image. In nearly every kiosk they sell pornography, as well as a lot of guys selling illegal pornographic movies on the street. Body and looks is everywhere! I've also noticed from my conversations with local boys that women are a lot more "objectified" than in Norway. I always get questions like: So how are the girls in Norway? Hot? How do you like the Serbian girls? Pretty good, right?

Not surprisingly the flee markets (where you buy new imported stuff) here are very popular places to buy cheap clothes. You get imported clothes from China, five times cheaper than in Belgrade. But also in Belgrade it seems like every second shop downtown is some kind of fashionable shop.

It's not about how much money or wealth you have, it's about how much it looks like you have.