[Celtic]

So, I've heard two opposite pieces of advice about dressing in Latin America:

- Kidnapping and crime are big danger, so it's important to dress down and look like you are poor to avoid being a target.

- People in Latin America like to dress really fashionably, so you really need to dress up to go to the club.

Any idea on striking a balance here? I'm going to Mexico City soon. I like the idea of rocking my custom suit international player style- but not if the result is bad guys thinking Gringo+Custom Suit=Rich/Good kidnapping target.

How about just wearing Fashionable Jeans+shirt with a sport coat? Would that be a good balance in terms of looking good without looking like a kidnap target?

[speakeasy]

I had the same dilemma in crime=-ridden Rio de Janeiro. I just dressed like regular beach guy during the day with shorts, sandals and t-shirt, or sometimes no shirt at all. At night I dressed nice and took a cab to wherever I needed to go.

[InternationPlayboy]

Brazilian men don't really dress all that great. I would almost say you can dress down from what you would wear to say a New York Club. But either way, I think you will be fine going out dressed nice at night as long as you are with groups of people or taking taxis everywhere. I have a feeling part of the reason I never got fucked with in Brazil is because of the way I dressed. I typically wore XL shirts and long/baggy pants/shorts. At night though I would dress up maybe 1/2 the time.

[Mrs. Chocolate]

Well, dress something casual during the day, and better clothes at night. (if you don't you may not enter in certain places)

[InternationPlayboy]

(08-29-2010 08:12 PM)Mrs. Chocolate Wrote:  

Well, dress something casual during the day, and better clothes at night. (if you don't you may not enter in certain places)

Agreed. Though I can't really think of anywhere that I had to even wear a collared shirt. Even Baronetti and Zero Zero in Rio. Both were about R$100 for consumpcao, and they still didn't have a dress code.

[Roosh]

Rio can be a fun place to dress up because no one else does. Easy to stand out. My danish roommate had some style and he never had issues with safety.

[Rocco81]

Ace: Mexico is hella dangerous now a days but you still will be 99.9% of the time A ok Esp in DF. Just don't walk around scared looking, don't follow people to do a bump in a dark alley, if some girl approaches you too soon and asks too quickly to go home with you she is either a prostitute or she has her boys outside waiting to mug you. Take your drink with you wherever you go don't leave it with strangers. Stay in the nicer areas around educated Mexicans and you will have a great time.

None of the above is likely to happen but all of it could and does happen at times. Mexico is wild.

Cool thing is that Mexico City is one of the largest cities on the planet. I haven't been but my friends came back with pics and stories and you can pretty much indulge yourself in any scene imaginable down there without danger just as long as you stay in decent areas. There is a good sized upper class population there who run the gamet of tailored suit top notch, to indie rock/punk club kids to the downright cowboy mexican party scene. All of them were educated and classy folks that just embrased some sort of style. That is of course in direct contrast to lets say Tijuana the punk/indie kids are just street rat glue sniffers, the cowboys are probably real cowboys and the guys in nice suits are probably drug dealers.