How Travel Adventures Inspire Dirndl Designs

One of my favorite things to do is travel and learn about other cultures. I find it fascinating how the difference in culture affects how people work, live and play. Not to mention my LOVE for food and eating my way through Thailand is on my bucket list for sure!  

One of my fondest memories growing up was spending some weekends at my Grandparents house (who were world travelers) and watching slides of their adventures. Grandpa Joe would make dinner inspired by one of their travels and then we would change into our PJs (or princess dress-up clothes), set up a blanket fort in the basement while Grandma put on some traditional music (from wherever we were traveling that night). Then the big projector screen would roll down, the lights turned off and the adventure began. Sometimes we would ask tons of questions and other times, we would all just sit quietly and take in the experience of the images, the music and that “chi-chick” sound of the slide projector.

They also had this epic map in their basement and they would put a pin in each country they visited after they come home from a trip. This map had so many pins!!! The traveling began with their first big trip out West in 1973 and their first international trip to Central America in 1979. One of the things I admired most about them and their travels is they always went to places with cultures very different from their own. They experienced a way of living that was so separated from what they knew here in America and from their time back home (Yugoslavia and Austria). Even into their 70s my grandparents traveled to unusual and amazing destinations, my grandfather said to my Grandma, “Well, we’re older now, so maybe we should take it easy. How about camping in Tunisia?” Their open minds, capacity for learning and humbleness is something that will always stay with me.

I’ve also started following a few travel bloggers recently and seeing their Instagram stories and reading their posts has been so inspiring. As many of you may know, I have a young son who is now 16 months… so the idea of world travel seems a bit daunting. I’m so glad that I’ve found blogs like My Wanderlusty Life and Happy to Wander.  

So, while I don’t see a whole lot of international travel in my immediate future, discovering these blogs and thinking about my Grandparents’ adventures really inspired me to bring back the #GirlsWhoTravel Collection. I took some of their travels as inspiration for each dirndl and then I also took one of my favorite trips and turned it into a dirndl as well. I’m so excited with how this collection turned out and I can’t wait for its release in the coming weeks.

The 7 places that inspired the dirndls in this collection are as follows:

• Quebec
• Iceland
• Morocco
• Holland
• Ghana
• Belize
• Indonesia

Check out the collection trailer video to get an exclusive behind the scenes look at the photoshoot and the newest dirndl designs.

Have you been bitten by the travel bug? What was your favorite destination so far? I’d love to hear all about it in the comments below!   

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