An interview with elleadore.com, a major French fashion website. They also used one of my pictures here.
As the piece is in French, I am including the questions they sent me and my responses in English below.
– How would you describe Chinese style in the streets ?
If you come here after having seeing my blog, you might be disappointed as you will almost never glimpse that blend of bohemian chic and high-fashion that characterizes the type of hip characters I photograph. That said, the common people here are very interested in fashion. Things tend to be rather colorful. There is a certain fear of empty spaces – there is a technical word for this but I forget it. Patterns, frills, English words and lace are all quite popular. I suspect people don’t fashion to be boring. There is a clear influence both from the West and from Japan and Korea.
– Why is it so inspiring for you ?
It is inspiring mainly because it is developing and hasn’t quite found itself yet. There are no rules – people are really looking for the rules I suppose. There is also the challenge of how to incorporate Chinese tradition in a way that is fresh and interesting.
– Why is Beijing a city of fashion ? Why do you like Beijing ?
Beijing is the center of the new world. Period. It is the proverbial city of contradictions – but beyond that it is pure power in a way that New York, Washington, Paris and London cannot quite rival. It is absolute power combined with a strong sense of culture all in the midst of a brew of contentiousness, grand ambitions, and self-doubt.
– Which Chinese fashion web sites/blogs would you recommend us ?
Obviously, the real center of Chinese fashion online is Weibo, China’s twitter. The challenge is finding the key voices and following them. So this is more a question of recommending the right people.
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