Temper goes trending and casts a net upon all that is throwing tantrums in the world of China Fashion and Urban Culture. This makes for a collection dipping its toe into the deep indigo-dyed pool that is the ocean of Middle Kingdom fashionable slash cultural astonishment.
UNITLAB SS23 lookbook. Artistic direction: Nicolas Tian Cai; styling by Ren Cuidi.
1. “Bound” Feet
For its SS23 collection, footwear maverick Untitlab wrapped itself in some BDSM culture inspo courtesy of one of China’s
arguably most sex positive and LGBTQIA+ (did we get that right?) progressive cities, namely, Shanghai. Going against grain is the hot red thread that’s woven through every single one of the label’s collections. So, in honor of Untitlab’s latest undertaking….
A few fun “Shanghai x Sexuality” facts:
Shanghai’s first gay bar opened in 1995; many other gay bars of the first wave also opened in the early 1990s. The late 90s saw a sharp increase in the number of gay businesses and bars.
In 2005, Fudan University began offering an LGBT studies program. This was the first course on LGBT culture offered in a Mainland Chinese university
“(The level of) sex education has been increasing in China, but we still lack scientific and systematic sex education for children during the puberty period. It’s an urgent task for schools, families and society, as a whole, to work together to solve the problem so as to help the young generation grow up healthily,” according to a report released at a forum on family education during puberty at Shanghai Open University in late 2019.
Once the milk’s “bad” casein is removed, the remainder protein is spun through a spinneret to solidify it into fiber. Image: online
2. Got Milk?
There’s no use in cyring over spilt milk, not even the 116 million tons of dairy products that are wasted globally, with about half lost before even reaching the store every year.
Robert Luo first came face to face with the gargantuan issue of dairy waste during a stint at his uncle’s dairy farm in China’s Qinghai Province where he discovered buckets and buckets of spoiled milk.
He then founded Mi Terro in 2018, a biotechnology company that reengineers leftover milk into sustainable fibers that can replace plastic in the fashion, medical and packaging industries.
Mi Terro rescues excess milk from its dairy farm partners, skims it to remove fats before dewatering it to turn the liquid into powdered milk. It is then dissolved once again and purified to remove the bacteria, or the so-called “bad” casein, from expired or spoiled milk. Casein makes up 80 percent of milk protein. #nowyouknow
Once the “bad” casein is removed, the remainder protein is spun through a spinneret to solidify it into fiber. The fibers are then stretched and spun into yarn for clothes manufacturing, but, according to Luo, can be also used in bed linen, food packaging, face masks and toilet paper.
Read more about Luo’s foray into the bio buzz on China’s only English newsweekly: Beijing Review.
Influencers in the wild are inducing social anxiety. Image via China Marketing Podcast
3. It’s Hip To Be Scared
With a whopping 8 million views on Chinese Pinterest slash e-commerce platform 小红书 ( xiǎohóngshū| Little Red Book) and another 15 million views on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, as of February 22, the “hipster-phobia” 潮人恐惧症 (cháorén kǒngjùzhèng) hashtag has generated much discussion in the Middle Kingdom.
Hipster-phobia refers to a fear of trendy people and an instinctive desire to avoid those who dress in hot-to-trot street styles–mostly found in the wild around China’s hot and happening (shopping) areas, e.g., Beijing’s Sanlitun commercial center or Shanghai’s Jing’an District (oh, the clichés we’re churning out here!). The term reflects the “anxiousness and embarrassment of some Chinese when meeting these fashionistas,” even without the presence of a filter.
Jing Daily, the leading digital publication on luxury consumer trends in China, brings you all the scary deets right here.
FEATURED IMAGE: COLLAGE OF RELATED IMAGES, INLCUDING ONE IMAGE FROM THE UNITLAB SS23 lookbook– artistic direction: Nicolas Tian Cai; styling by Ren Cuidi.
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Perpetually in pursuit of the greater good that is “China Fashion”, van Paridon set up The China Temper to help promote the dynamite dynamic fashion scene sprouting within Beijing, Shanghai, and China overall. Catering to anybody and everybody who reads English and/or Chinese, Temper covers all the basics and bases. From China's street style scenery to its budding photographers, internationally renowned designers, and underground quirks plus phenomena: We present one hot-hip-happening current collective weaving The New "Made in China" tag.
The term “Made in China” is undergoing the ultimate 21st Century makeover. Escorted by the increasingly strong influence of a new thinking among China’s younger generations, regarding individuality and the expression thereof, the fashion scene in the Middle Kingdom is exploding. And stretches far beyond what meets the eye. It’s appliqué, one might say.
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