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Fashion Tribes: China
A window into the fashion trends embraced by Chinese youth—who make up one in ten of the world’s population.Confident and proud in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, the young people of China are rediscovering their own heritage…and mixing it with Western style to create something that’s fresh, new, and unique to them. Using a mix of straight-up street photography with detailed shots of accessories and graphics, this volume showcases China’s most cutting-edge fashion culture. In addition, interviews with Chinese style leaders provide invaluable insight into the aspirations, motivations, and thinking of today’s young Chinese.
- GenresFashion
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
10 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 30, 2025
This book does a perfectly fine (if dull) job of marking a moment in the history of globalization, but a poor job of addressing Chinese fashion (unsurprising since the main editor is a white Londoner).
Between each chapter, there’s a little bit of context, but most of these micro essays can be summarized in the same way: after a long period of isolation and Maoist oppression, China was charging into consumer trends in the early 2000’s. Tallon assures us that, although many of the popular trends covered in this book come from the West, each have their own uniquely Chinese twist on them. However, it’s rarely made clear what that twist is. A few quotes from the people photographed might have helped address that if they shared stories about how they adapted a trend to suit their culture, how they incorporated a Chinese designer, or how they connected it to something personal. I’m not even sure these young people would’ve said those things though. By definition of focusing on youth subculture, this is a curated collection of people trying to distinguish themselves from their parents by slotting into a friend group and an aesthetic with clearly defined rules.
The result is a set of plain, unglamorous photos of young adults who look exactly like everyone else did in 2008. This could’ve just as easily been New Jersey or Southern California. In fact, I didn’t even find these 5 subcultures distinct from each other at times.
I was expecting something more like Tamagni’s Style Tribes, which captures moments of tension between globalization and a specific cultural context, oozing with personality and story. This is pure globalization in its most soul-sucking, flattening form.
Between each chapter, there’s a little bit of context, but most of these micro essays can be summarized in the same way: after a long period of isolation and Maoist oppression, China was charging into consumer trends in the early 2000’s. Tallon assures us that, although many of the popular trends covered in this book come from the West, each have their own uniquely Chinese twist on them. However, it’s rarely made clear what that twist is. A few quotes from the people photographed might have helped address that if they shared stories about how they adapted a trend to suit their culture, how they incorporated a Chinese designer, or how they connected it to something personal. I’m not even sure these young people would’ve said those things though. By definition of focusing on youth subculture, this is a curated collection of people trying to distinguish themselves from their parents by slotting into a friend group and an aesthetic with clearly defined rules.
The result is a set of plain, unglamorous photos of young adults who look exactly like everyone else did in 2008. This could’ve just as easily been New Jersey or Southern California. In fact, I didn’t even find these 5 subcultures distinct from each other at times.
I was expecting something more like Tamagni’s Style Tribes, which captures moments of tension between globalization and a specific cultural context, oozing with personality and story. This is pure globalization in its most soul-sucking, flattening form.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews