By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Why do most Chinese men dress so badly?
Most Chinese women dress with vivid colors and opt for a variety of styles. Clothes can be cheap and shopping is their favorite 'hobby', after sleeping and eating. Some young men are still acceptable but most men after the age of thirty will chose the same identical style. I can count on my fingers the times I've seen a Chinese man dressed with a suit that was his size or a nice pair of leather shoes or a properly ironed shirt. Why?
I have asked this question to students on a number of occasions. The girls tell me that they believe that other girls are fashionable but many of them say that they, themselves aren't. They also have pointed out that they simply choose their favorite blouse and favorite pants and put them on. Not much thought goes into whether those two items actually match. It's a strange and I suppose in our minds, a careless concept...... but it if makes 'em happy.....
The boys seem to not know much about whether the clothing looks girly or masculine at all. I guess their parents lack in this department as well cause for the most part that's who's shelling out the beans.
The other fashion statement that puzzles me is when the middle aged men wear the full-on Houston Rockets (or any NBA) uniform. Shorts and jersey with maybe dress shoes or loafers. I can see wearing a jersey as I do with my Reds or Canucks attire but to wear the whole uniform just looks strange.
mArtiAn:
Yeh, but they make up for these fashion faux pas by wearing pyjamas to the supermarket. A couple of safety pins and a mohawk and you've got punk.
I wore pyjamas to our last Halloween party. all wei gou ren present caught it immediately. my friends from the Land of the Horn didn't get it at all. And then barely got it when explained. 
just like another thread said women worn short skirt in working place. for me, it is just not formal but it is normal. It is fine wearing short skirt in working place,but in small companies. They do not have dressing code. But, in big companies, I think you barely see the girls at reception wearing short skirt and showing legs. They dress uniform.
by the way, showing legs does not bother men that much there. cleavage does! 
From what I could see, if it's bright and colorful, has lots of patterns and lots of shiny things, then it's a good choice. They simply don't care what it says on the shirt. A student of mine said she bought a shirt because she liked the color, and didn't care what the design was on the front. The shoes don't have to match the outfit. Honestly it doesn't take much to be fashionable in China.
vice verse, westerner does not care what tattoo means on their backs and arms. some Chinese words look confused too.
I think Chinese do not care what writes in English while Chinese because Chinese dont know English. If there are Chinese on Shirt, they will care.
Fashion is art, and art can only be judged relatively, and is therefore beyond judgement, so my question to you is who told you that white shorts go well with black stockings? C'mon who? You're bending over and showing us your arse, you're not Elton John, please, have a little self-respect.
" can count on my fingers the times I've seen a Chinese man dressed with a suit that was his size or a nice pair of leather shoes or a properly ironed shirt. Why?"
- climate
Remember the first line of the great gatsby
mattsm84:
Then remember the rest of the Great Gatsby. For real, that rule dooms Nick to hanging out with assholes for about 250 pages.
the men here have little fashion sense and I break it down into a few groups.
C-pop look - most haridressers in China fall into this group.
standard Chinese business look - wear the worst polo or collar shirt in the world that has no style, belt buckle the size of a wallet, pants pulled uptowards the belly button, and the trousers will not match the shirt.
suit look - this is a new concept here wearing a suit. But the shirt will not be ironed with a few stains for the extra look. Suit will most likely by shiny and is often 3times to big or 3 times to small.
Casual look - people have talked about it here. but wearing the basketball jersery with basketball shoes and pants.
derek:
Add white socks to the suit and viola!...the ensemble is complete.
GuilinRaf:
Agree with everything except the belt buckle up to the belly button. The ones i have seen the belly button "pours out" and COVERS the belt buckle...
ElenaDob:
Yeah, why do they like white socks so much? The socks should match the trousers.
Another cool match: pajamas + high heels; sports pants + leather shoes or trainers + long coat.
Of course there is that great German / English fashion bastion of middle to old aged men wearing sandals and socks!
Personally, I don't do fashion but I do do classical smart.
giadrosich:
@Loke. You're in good company. Al Einstein didn't wear socks either. The reason, he said, was that they "got holes in them."
Hugh.G.Rection:
Sandals are fine, especially the 'surfing sandals' AKA combat flip flops in my neck of the woods. But sandals MUST be worn barefoot, NEVER with socks, or the fashion police will sentence you to ................. something VERY nasty!! 
GuilinRaf:
Oh, quite nasty indeed!
AOffenders are forced into a polyester 1975 Leisure suit, baby blue and throw you into the middle of a Goth club.
Let's not forget "the classic"..........guy with the t-shirt pulled up under his armpits revealing that "6 pack"....er,.....gut! (while sitting in the restaurant...mmmmm....appetizing.)
diverdude1:
yeah, china for some reason comes up with totally unique things that seemingly only fly among the Han. blasting horns continuously, spitting on sidewalk, littering like going for the Gold, white socks with 2 dollar patent leather shoes, and the classic shirt up over the belly !
i just wish someone would give them basic information on wearing a suit, if the tie is a pattern , wear a solid shirt, if the shirt is a pattern wear a solid tie.
black belt black shoes
brown belt brown shoes.
this shit is not hard
i expect retired quarterbacks on espn to screw this up , but news reporters on cctv should know better
mattsm84:
My boss rocks the 1 size too large suit, dirty white sneakers combo. He looks like he's getting ready for his first communion.
I've always looked at this situation the other way. Yes, dress clothes are often too big, shiny or ridiculously patterned and mismatched, but by god, at least most people here still try to dress up on a daily basis (albeit sometimes with hilarious results, i.e. going hiking in high heels).
While I can't speak for the non-American countries, I have long felt that our dress up culture is a thing of the past. "work casual" has replaced the suit and tie in the office, college kids go to all of their classes in sweatpants and hoodies, and recent college grads show up to their first job wearing flip flops...
Europe wins for classiness I'm guessing.
Traveler:
Isn't most clothing in China attempts to copy European (western) culture?
:
For sure.
I guess what I am saying is, from my own experiences, a lot of Americans have gotten really lazy with dressing up. Chinese dress up, just in ways that we think go against the Western fashion aesthetics they've adopted. Meanwhile Europeans are all holding it down in their designer boutique white leather pants and open collar club shirts (joking).
It is just another way to tell them apart from Japanese men, who have much better fashion sense.
Possibly the combination of a vast array of choices and uncertainty in what goes with what leads to a spectrum of various styles combined to ill effect.
All the fancy, ersatz haute couture clothes advertisements don't help. Who wants to look like a meth addict?
The whole thing may stem from a desire to stand out among the millions, but really, lime green basketball shoes?
I wish they could burn all the skinny ties and the huge whale-sized ties and stick with the middle sized ties. This is the Middle Kingdom, after all. This will be my mission.
Once you have sufficient clothing to keep you legal the rest is just fashion. Fashions are different the world over and almost all of them from some perspective could be argued to be ridiculous.
Don't like it? Don't wear it; but don't begrudge the other fellow from wearing what he / she wishes.
