In downtown Prague there is this beautiful art nouveau style cafe in the municipal building that is quite famous. My mother and I went there the other day with some American guests of ours. As we all sat there enjoying the balmy summer evening, my eyes wandered and I stared intently at the man playing the grand piano, wishing I could play more than just ‘ode to joy’ on my favorite instrument. Then my mom said something that caught my attention: “I know what we shall do tonight Henny, we shall go and see ‘Sex in the City’!”

This moment was one of surprising realization. After my initial desire to remind my mother that the film was, in fact, called ‘Sex and the City” (although her title was just as suitable considering the content of the show), I found myself considering the irony of the situation. This consideration led me to conclude that something between my childhood and now had seriously effected my life, my country and my culture.

My mother grew up in the Czech Republic and had very fashionable, proud, parents. My mother herself is and always was a symbol of independence and female empowerment. After all, she was there in 1968 when the Warsaw pact invaded her country and she jumped on their tanks to express how pissed off she was at them in true Czech retaliation. I suppose, for me, her saying that she wanted to see that film was a surprise to me because she was also a symbol of European culture and fashion to me and others, and the way I’ve always imagined a woman should be.

Attending the film with her made my mind wander even further. We rushed out of the historical gem that we had just dined at in order to make the 8:30pm premiere of what was named ‘one of the summer's most anticipated films’. As we entered the massive multiplex cinema and found our theatre I was astonished to see that it was absolutely packed! The room was buzzing with pre-movie whispering as young and old, male and female Czechs waited for the film to begin. I don’t know quite how to explain the surprise that I was feeling. I mean, this movie was in english (as most cinemas play movies in english in Prague) and it was about four American girls, sex and fashion. It seemed shockingly ironic to me that so many Czechs, who have always been very good at sex and fashion were turning to this product placement filled melodrama from the west!

It was a sign of something I already knew was happening. Prague was changing, Moscow, London and Paris too. I remember the not so old days when my family and I would travel to the Costa Brava and enjoy shopping there because everything in the stores was so unique and different from home. It was a thrill to see how the Spanish dressed differently and to be able to take a piece of that home with you. Now when I go to Barcelona I see all the same shops that we have in Prague. Whats the point in buying something in Spain if you could have just bought it at the Zara on Robson street? Isn't half the fun replying when someone compliments your shirt saying “thanks! I bought it in Rome”. Moscow is the same way with sickly new “mega malls” popping up monthly. If you look around on the high streets of Europe’s most famous cities you will see every trend possible and less and less culturally typical fashions. Someday it will have all of them and the time that people traveled to buy things they cant buy at home will have died.

I am of course not oblivious to the benefits that the globalization of Fashion has brought to Europe and North America (much more North America). It gives people choices, they can be a skater punk if they want, dress like a ruthless New York lawyer or a Parisian princess, they have access to whatever style they choose. All this choice however, comes with a cost. The cost is that one of the best parts of fashion: culture, is lost and we find ourselves watching two and a half hour long advertisements like “Sex and the City” to tell us what’s in style. Such a shame.