Category: Beijing Street Style

Fashion Tips From a Regular Guy

An attempt by an average but witty guy to share his fashion wisdom with misguided females, this diatribe on female fashion sins is amusing in a frat boy sort of way. He’s right about crocs and red lipstick I suppose – I’m not a huge fan of either – though the idea that there are just three types of red pushes his musings into Neanderthal territory. I’m just supposed to find the piece amusingly vulgar and refreshing, but the angst from men with boring style and cleverness to spare directed at the “pregnancy blouses” has always perplexed me. A lot of guys who wear un-tucked stripey shirts seem to make fun of the women who wear pregnancy blouses.

Can one be against a style because it is trendy and overdone? I suppose, though some people can still do them well. I get his point about this type of clothing being appropriate only for pregnant women, but they can also be an interesting play on proportions. Like many styles, they are a runway trend – that looks good on rail-thin models – that many ordinary folk took too far. Yes, they look bad with fat denim-clad legs protruding, but beautiful, slim ones, bare, or in colorful stockings are not as unsexy as he suggests. What kind of women’s style does excite him – tight jeans and a fitted white tank top?

As for the Cuban dictator hat thing, I find a tad annoying, though I haven’t really had the misfortune of seeing many of the hipster women that he mentions. There is an argument made time and again about style: “it was made for X, so if you’re not X, don’t wear it because you’ll look like a poser.” I believe much of the point of fashion is aspiration and fantasy. At its highest level, fashion is about narcissistic delusions. It gives ordinary, boring, people with burnable money and time the opportunity to dress to escape their mundane life. You don’t have to be a writer, artist, or dictator, but you can pretend you’re one with the right hat.

All the same, it’s a funny piece, and he is essentially laughing at people with mainstream and unimaginative senses of style, so I can’t complain too much.

Scarfy Couple

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These two scarf clad young people attended college in the United Kingdom. His current trading business involves frequent trips to London, where he also does most of his shopping. The velvet coat is from Calvin Klein. I’m not sure what to think about velvet coats. They seem elegant with a good dose of 18th century flamboyance, but they would probably wear out quite easily in the elbows and other places.

Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc. from Stylites.net

On behalf of Stylites.net, I would like to wish all viewers and their families a Merry Christmas. I wish all of you the very best of health and positive relations with relatives. Let’s also consider the countless people who don’t even get to think about the frivolous subject of wearing interesting or stylish outfits.
Please, when possible, try to consume environmentally-friendly and ethically or locally produced fashion or, ideally, buy second hand. If you must buy something from a sweatshop, please make sure that it is at least a genuine product. The conditions in the sweatshops that make counterfeits products are even less well-regulated. So, yes, buy H&M rather than fake Prada. If all else fails, at least buy something unique that makes n interesting style statement.

I would also like to add all of the holidays that I forgot to mention before, such as Hanukkah. I’m sure there are some other holidays that passed over the last month as well. The first day of Kwanzaa is tomorrow, so I hope that all its celebrants will get the most out of this period of honoring family, community, and traditions.
Thank you very much for your continued support of Stylites.net. For me, your checking back here as often as possible and leaving your comments and suggestions is the best possible Christmas gift. I really appreciate it. Over the next few months, there will several additions here at stylites.net and I’m very excited about unveiling them. More on that later. – Nels

Hair Stylist in Tuxedo Shirt at Dongsi

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He was just about ready to go back inside after finishing a smoke. He does a pretty good job of not appearing chilly. This hair stylist on Dongsi avenue seems more sophisticated than his unruly peers at Xidan. Dongsi is famous throughout Beijing for its hair stylists, many of whom are said to have trained in Korea. The street is lined with both tiny establishments and larger and higher end ones like this. In modern Beijing, the Eastern part of the city with the Central Business District and embassies is generally more developed, though the West is coming up as well. The Southern part of the city is the more backward part, in the opinion of locals.

They always say that it takes a certain type of man to wear a tuxedo shirt without a tie and links without a suit. I think this guy is doing it even though I suspect that he doesn’t ever this shirt with a bow tie. I also like the bell bottoms, or perhaps wide leg trousers since I’m not sure if they flare or not. This type of trousers is definitely out of fashion, even in China, so this look takes confidence. These particular trousers were actually custom-made. The very slim ankle is the rage here, just as it has been for a while in the West and in Japan. Fuller cuts, though not the flared trousers of a few years ago, are coming back into style though. The slim, tapered pants do not look good on everyone.

Christmas Eve

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When you’re 16, you don’t have to be subtle about getting into the spirit of the season. She’s a student at a foreign language high school. Deliberately dressing this way for the occasion, she plans to attend the Christmas Eve mass at Wangfujing church, the largest and probably oldest in Beijing. Though not Christian, she says that young people in China today are very interested in Western culture, which is why she’s attending church and is dressed this way. As far as polka-dot on polka-dot ensembles go, I think the boot and stocking match works…fairly well. Revealing bare leg between the stockings and coat is pretty naughty.

Edit: I just realized I had spelled the word “stocking” as “stalking” in above. It’s a funny mistake to make on Christmas.

IKEA – A Fashion Design Student

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The other day, I visited IKEA for the first time – I had never been in the States or Europe. The deep pink coat and wool polka scarf of this fashion design student had a sixties flair, distinguishing her from the numberless hoards of identical members of the new middle class who crowd IKEA and made me feel very claustrophobic.

There may have been a place with a better light situation to photograph her, but I wanted to include the message that is behind her. IKEA asks customers to bus their own trays, a novel concept in China – even McDonald’s has given up on this. The sign explains that this is to save on costs so that they can keep prices low. In general, IKEA impressed me with the efforts they make to educate customers on European modes of shopping and attitudes toward consumption. They are the only retailer I have seen in China that charges for plastic bags and, everywhere, they highlight the use of recycled materials. In the self-packing area, they ask customers to leave any unused cardboard for others to use. I’ve never been to Walmart, but I suspect they do not go to these lengths, and they probably don’t sell such ingeniously designed knick-knacks.

The IKEA in Beijing is the second largest in the world after the one in Stockholm. Being half Swedish, I was quite proud to see how crowded it was and the cleverness of everything. It was also nice to have Swedish meatballs, layer cakes, and sparkling water in the cafeteria. Of course, IKEA is no longer Swedish, and in fact IKEA doesn’t even seem to be a company, as this economist article explains. The store does maintain its Swedish feel though, and it is great to see it in China.

Europeans might have an easier time exporting their eco-friendly mentality to China than to America. A recent survey revealed that around 60% of Americans see global warming as a serious problem while nearly 80% of Chinese do. The number must be 100% in the Bay Area, but it’s not surprising Americans are less worried when you consider that most of them live in places where pollution is barely noticeable. Also, we tend to export our dirtiest industries to other countries. Global warming and pollution are not the same, but when you live in a smaller environment that is visibly deteriorating and warming due to human activity, year after year, it is easier to accept the warnings of scientists regarding the worldwide situation.

Xidan: Simple is Rare

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Ms. Chen must seem fairly “normal” compared to most of the people I find. She caught my eye mainly because she was the most simply dressed person in a huge field of bubble-gum pink, leopard boots, and sequins at Xidan. In that cacophony of fluorescent, overblown make-up and synthetics, someone can really stand out through not trying too hard and being gentle on the eye. She said she doesn’t care much about fashion.

Xidan Hair Stylists

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These hair stylists stand outside the malls of Xidan all winter long, waylaying unsuspecting passersby, attempting to drag them in for a cut. They insist that the potential victim’s hair looks terrible and that they can do a better job – or perhaps it is just my hairdo that is particularly dreadful. Even if it is, I’m not sure that I would trust them to make it alright.

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These guys are particularly aggressive with females. They will corner unattached girls, getting really close to them, and talk to them for as long as possible, even following them. I don’t think it is mean-spirited or with definite ill-intent, but it certainly would make me uncomfortable if I were one of the targets.

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I like the rock and roll look of this guy. I think it is important to realize that Stylites is a record. Much of the time this is an anthropological exercise rather than an aesthetic one. I’m not deliberately attempting to provide style inspirations or examples of refined taste. The attempt is to document the development of style and fashion on the of Beijingers – to show the style landscape, as it were. So if the people photographed are rookies in the world of style or global fashion, then that is what will be here. I’m going to be putting up a full mission statement soon, that will pick up on these ideas.

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This guy was trying to help me find other people to photograph, though that might have been yet another ploy to talk to girls.

A Teacher at Nanluoguxiang

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After all of these pics of young bohemians and foreigners promenading down Nanluoguxiang, Beijing’s hippest traditional hutong, I decided to photograph one of the real residents. Mr. Li Shuming is a painting teacher and he has lived on the street for several decades.

I liked the hat and the nice fit of his Mao jacket, actually called a Zhongshan jacket in China after Sun Yatsen. The jacket is made out of a thick wool, unlike most of the Mao jackets I see which are made from a ratty poly-blend. This is great outerwear and I suggest that viewers consider having modernized versions tailor-made.

HK Yogurt Bearer

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Some visiting HK girls walking down Nanluoguxiang. My eye was actually caught by the yogurt bottle in the hand of one. This sweetened yogurt, in a reusable bottle, sells at every street corner here in Beijing. I try to drink this rather than other sweetened beverages, because it saves packaging. This yogurt costs about one US quarter and has been on offer here for over a decade. Consumption of yogurt and other dairy products in China has skyrocketed, with support from government, because many experts have pointed to the advantages of consuming calcium. The amount of sweetened yogurt selling in grocery stores is astounding, though non-sweetened plain yogurt is impossible to find outside of stores catering to foreigners. Chinese find the flavor of our Middle Eastern yogurt to be too sour.

Massive Green Scarf

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I saw this scarf from two hundreds meters away, even though I am near-sighted. Getting closer, I saw that it was quite a fabulous piece with a big herringbone and a woolly but soft-looking texture. This is perfect for the windy winters of Beijing. I wasn’t surprised to hear that the wearer is a Londoner – they often have a quirky but confident kind of style. She is here studying for a year.

Men in Boots, II

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From Chengdu, T. P. is an interpreter, fluent in English, Spanish, French and Mandarin. He was here to visit Daniel, a sportswear designer I photographed on another day.

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The leather vest adds a somewhat Bavarian flavor to the ensemble. I don’t know that I’ve seen such a vest in Beijing. He seems ready for hiking in the alps, but the boots in jeans look also seems very appropriate for harsh climate of Beijing.