One of the things they make contestants do in the Miss Universe pageant, apparently, is pose in their native costume. This, apparently, the native costume of women in Italy, no doubt designed to safely fend off the advances of Italian men on subways:
… and apparently Greek women wear this sort of thing all the time:
More silliness noted on this subject at:
… which is an article at Reuters’ ‘Oddly Enough’ blog
rogueclassicism 