Let me begin with a little introduction on Hong Kong fashion. The style is definitely a hybrid of East meets West, but sometimes East did not meet the dictionary. Chinglish t-shirts are a whole other post, possibly a whole other blog, but just to whet your appetite, take a look at this work of genius:
There will be plenty more on Chinglish and Chinglish shirts... so back to local style. This is definitely a high fashion urban environment. I have mad respect for the ladies that wear towering heels and hike the streets. Remember the general population doesn't have cars. And it's not the kind of city where women wear "walking shoes" during their commute and hot heels in the office. It's actually the opposite. These gals wanna look good on the street, and slip into slippers when they get to their desks. And because we live in a highly professional environment, everyone's in suits and appropriate business attire and A LOT of black. Because of this, I try to wear black as little as possible. I love color too much anyway.
HK ladies and lads are petite to say it kindly. Maybe this is a nice thing for the ladies, but it's not cute to see guys that are stick thin. If I can break you, that's a problem. For me that means I have trouble shopping here because the sizes are very small. No room for curves, not even the good ones.
Because HK girls are slim with boyish figures, they can get away with more revealing clothes. I remember seeing a girl wearing a very very short skirt with a little top and thought: shouldn't you wait until the sun goes down before dressing like that? The strange thing was, because she was so pencil thin and carrying herself with no confidence, it wasn't sexy at all. If Christina Hendricks was wearing the same thing, she might have been fined.
We may be terribly jealous of their naturally slim physique, but the sad thing is lots of these girls have low self esteem and terrible body image issues for no reason. If you go to the beach, you'll see plenty of cute girls going into the water still fully clothed. They wouldn't dare reveal themselves in a swimsuit. Even my co-worker in her 20s cannot imagine being out in public in a bikini. Now what makes this even more disturbing is for ever girl at the beach covered up, there's a guy in a speedo showing off his goods! This says SO MUCH about Hong Kong.
Besides loving American style, HKers also adore the Japanese. In the best situation it could be fusion fashion, but in the worst and most common case it's more like an identity crisis. High end labels are obviously highly prized, but we all know that spending a lot of money does not automatically mean you have any style. I also catch people dressing age inappropriate. So many things to explore, but now that you have a general understanding of local street style (through my eyes of course!) let's talk about these harem pants!
This morning on the MTR, I caught this unfortunate lady wearing harem pants. This is not a look I myself would try (unless I was back to my 2001 weight) but it's possible to do it right. First, you have to be curveless. So this makes sense for super skinny girls needing some feminine shape. Second, anything that is bulky or has a lot of volume needs to be paired with something more sleek. High heels, fitted top, SOMETHING cute. Finally, this particular pair just looks like you did something in your pants. Is it just me or does this make her look like a chicken?
Your turn. Agree or Disagree? Hot or Not?!
No comments:
Post a Comment