Clothing

Mom has been asking for a post about Chinese clothing, and I am finally giving in. The clothing here is hard to describe, but it definitely interesting. Most students dress pretty normal. Their outfits just seem a little odd each time.

A lot of students here dress like "hipsters" in America. However, in China, it is not being done ironically. I believe they actually like the clothes. There is a lot of plaid, on boys & girls, whether it matches or not. Big, thick rimmed, glassless, glasses are really popular too. Most people in China have real glasses (they genetically have poor eyesight as a people). So the ones who don't actually need glasses must have felt left out. To make up for it, they are wearing terrible, huge glasses that were only cool on nerds in the 80s.

The brands here are pretty similar to those at home. The only brand that has really stuck out to me as odd is Teenie Weenie Bear. The clothes are really preppy, polos & such, with a huge teddy bear embellishment. This brand sees themselves like Brooks Brothers. They are quite expensive ($100 for a shirt) and extremely popular. EVERYONE wears it. If I saw this at home, I would assume it was a children's brand. But no, my college students come to class decked out in T.W. Bear all the time. He is on coats, pants, shirts, gloves, everything. There are even knock offs of him available for those who don't want to spend the money on the real deal!

DK said, and is totally right, that you can sum up China's fashion in four words: "fur, glitter, rhinestones, and fringe." There are plenty of pieces that I think are cute, until I see the back or see the bottom. Then there are crazy rhinestone hearts on the heel of the shoe or startling pink glitter fringe on the cuff of the red coat.

In Chinese, red & pink are very similar words. As a result, people think they are basically the same color & wear them together all the time. As anyone who knows me knows, I HATE red & pink together. I think it is totally atrocious. Yet, my eyes are assaulted by this daily.

Also, in China it seems to be "cute" for boyfriends and girlfriends to wear matching outfits. It's a bit odd, kind of like Britney & Justin in 2001. Except, often the outfits outright match, not just coordinate. It's like they are on a team or something… Strange, but it makes it easy to tell who is dating.

One other thing- China is not afraid to mix patterns. They are fully content to wear stripes with bigger stripes under a plaid jacket. Multiple floral patterns are fine together. Mixing red plaid with big green plaid is totally acceptable.

Until I get a better collection of pictures, here are two sites that I think depict Chinese fashion perfectly! accidentalchinesehipsters.tumblr.com and http://chinesepeoplehavenostyle.com/