Erika Walsh

All over the world, people get up and put on clothes every single day. What those clothes look like, however, varies drastically. Are they new? Casual? Businesswear? Second-hand? Traditional? In China, you could see all of these styles on a stroll through your local shopping mall or market.

 As one of the major hubs of global manufacturing, Chinas fashion sense is a bright, textured, mishmash of East-meets-West, classic meets modern, and filled with never-ending trends. In Wuxi alone, there are dozens of large shopping malls filled with name-brands like Forever 21, H&M and Gap alongside Chinese brands such as Meters Bonwe, Peacebird, and other smaller chain stores. Besides those, in any city you can find endless smaller boutiques and underground fashion tiandi/fashion lady markets, where you can almost always haggle for a cheaper price. The fashions found in these markets are like nothing youd find in Western boutiques; while at first they seem one-of-a-kind, you soon come to realize that the stall right around the corner sells the same shirt for 30 yuan cheaper, or that it can easily be found on TaoBao.com for a fraction of the price. Many of these pieces have various English phrases or copyrighted characters on them, which for an English-speaking foreigner can be quite surprising and entertaining.

As someone who has a passion for fashion, I always have my eye on others outfits I pass on the streets. While itd be rude to take a picture of strangers walking by, I do try to document the many great sights I see & get a good deal if I can. Im happy that when I do return home someday, it will be with a suitcase full of unique outfits.