Friday, December 1, 2017

It's Called Fashion, Brenda. Look it Up!

In every culture you will notice different fashion styles or trends that you are not used to in your country. I thought about China's current style a lot, keep in mind I know basically nothing about fashion, so it feels like they are either way ahead of everyone else or super behind. Let us get into it.
There have been multiple cases where I have gone shopping from the mall behind my house, street markets, fashion districts, and the high end malls in Shanghai and this is how I would sum up fashion overall.

Fur dyed or non-dyed.

1990s sweaters with looney toon cartoon characters if possible.
Big comfy sweaters in the colors dark pink and mustard yellow.

Big zippers with a huge ring on them.

Earrings that you can pull the chain through your ear back and forth. They are super fun and they look awesome.

Pearls.

Clothes with English on them or at least the alphabet. They do not make sense. My favorite is from my first grade student's jacket which reads, "Art is just a plagarism on life." Or something to that effect. HE IS IN FIRST GRADE.

Glasses. The glasses they have are usually thin wire and highly reflective. The music teacher at our school has a pair of glasses that appear to have an opal shine on them. One of my gym coaches wears glasses for only the aesthetic, he has perfect vision otherwise and he works out with the glasses on. I have never loathed someone so much.

High heels. Honestly Chinese women who wear heels non-stop need to have some sort of award or tell me their secret. It is every woman too who wears heels. Mom is picking up kids from school? Gotta wear those stilletos. Working at the grocery store? Two inch heel for you. Walking around the lake for fun? Four inch heels for you, you go Glen Coco!

Embroderied items especially of birds and flowers.

Scarves. The big see-through kind or the ones that keep you warm. They are usually five feet long and one foot wide.

"Modern Chinese Chic" is the name stores call it but basically it is the traditional Qi Pao and party tunic but with a modern twist. As I stated before, I am ignorant on fashion and new to China, so I am not not sure what the modern twist is that they advertise because it looks traditional. None of my co-workers know either. The clothes sure are cool though!

Overall, the fashion is kind of a mish mosh of items and is hard to describe. I asked my co-workers to summarize it and they said, "Eh, sweaters and qi paos?" I said 90s with bigger statement pieces. One said Modern Chinese Chic. So there you go. China has fun shopping so you should definitly stop by one of their clothing stores. 

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