Chinese styles on the streets today are understandably different to those found a few decades earlier but we must not forget, as one fashion writer put it, “the Mao jacket was shed not that long ago. Concentrating on today’s Chinese youth we see that they have access to and enjoy wearing styles familiar in the west. Western culture has become ubiquitous here like it has in many parts of the world, with the Hollywood and pop music phenomenon. In a city like Beijing or Shanghai people are increasingly spending large parts of their incomes on designer labels.

Like anywhere in the world the really big designer labels and stores are much more readily seen on the streets of the major cities; in this case Beijing and Shanghai (Hong Kong if we include it into China here). Those cities represent just a fraction of the people in China, what about other smaller cities?

In Dalian for example, it is easy to see that fashion is important, maybe just as important as in BJ or Shanghai but designer labels, at least the real thing, are seen worn less. Instead the youth’s desire to draw attention and to express is manifested through different, often less expensive clothing maybe cheaper imitations that may be equally or possibly more eye-catching than their brand name counterparts in the major metropolitans.

The point of this project is to show the average chinese `cool` youth. To show how they are expressing themselves. I want to delve into the subject and be able to contextualize today`s fashion and compare it to where it came from and how fundamentally different youth style is today in comparison to just 20 years ago and what that means.

I am in no way attempting to point fun or look down upon these fashion choices here, instead my fascination with styles and especially the colours worn seen on the streets of Dalian everyday will make for a very stylistic project and should attract attention from anyone interested in fashion.