fanny packs

chileans have a very interesting concept of what is considered fashion/in style. one of the things i do on the metro or when i'm walking around the city to keep myself occupied is try to spot other gringos/gringas- this is not always a simple task; a lot of chileans have the same skin/hair/eye coloring as many USA-ers or europeans, so you've got to learn to look for the surefire giveaway clues that the person is in fact a chilean and not a fellow foreigner. below are some of said clues, all relating in some form to chile's concept of what's hip...
1) ali and sara, you are going to love this one: fanny packs. this is not a joke. perfectly normal, not overly nerdy or overly retro or overly anything, chilean university students, middle-aged men, errand-running mothers, and five year olds in pigtails (aka literally everyone) wears fanny packs here. and it is not considered a just-for-fun stunt, it is a serious practice, commonly used in place of a purse (if the wearer is female) or in lieu of pockets (for the male fanny pack sporters). chileans have also expanded upon the usual way of wearing a fanny pack and sometimes choose to mix it up and wear it over one shoulder instead. as a consequence of this style phenomenon, fanny packs are sold in high volume in both street-side shops and upscale malls. quite the cultural quirk :)
2) scrunchies. remember back in the days round about the preschool though elementary school years when instead of the purely purposeful rubber bands we now use to pull back our ponytails, we used to wear the fuzzy, bright-colored/patterned bands fondly known as scrunchies. chileans, ranging from young girls to otherwise serious-looking working women, sport these colorful accessories on a daily basis. again, this is not done as a joke, it is the seriously hip thing to do. sometimes i have to literally hold back my giggles on the metro when a 50-something women wearing work clothes and a serious frown-face walks on, and then turns around to show off her furry pink scrunchie. love it.
3) hairstyles, specifically the following as sported by 30-and-under chilean males: a) the mullet, b) the rat-tail (often in the form of a long skinny braid), c) dreadlocks (but not full-headed, usually just a section or a few in the back), or d) any combination of the previous three. 98% of the time these hairstyles are serious mistakes, it is very difficult to make a rat-tail look attractivley handsome. and yet despite this fact, they are incredibly common- why why why??
4) sneakers. while obviously sneakers are not a style unique to chile, they are by far the shoe style of choice here. if you see someone wearing ballet flats, there is a high chance that person is not chilean. possibly this will start to be less prominent when it gets a little warmer, but i have a feeling that it won't. chilean youth wear sneakers, day in and day out to all types of locales, almost without fail. and some of them are wicked cool too- i have been impressed on many occasions by the bright-colored or oldschool-style sneaker choices of chileans i spot in passing. though i have not tried to assimilate into chilean culture by means of the fanny-packs, scrunchies, or hair fiascos, i do wear my sneakers (boring and un-oldschool as they are) literally every day- the ballet flats have made it out of my closet a grand total of four times (although to be fair i might have worn them more if they hadn't given me some mean blisters the first time out... apparently thirty minutes of sidewalk is not what jcrew driving flats were made for :) )