Clothes Shopping in China

There are two main obstacles for me when it comes to clothes shopping in China.  There used to be three, but now that I’ve lost 40 pounds, I can actually wear clothes off the rack instead of having them check for a bigger size in the back.  The other two obstacles are 1. The style is weird and 2. The sales people are annoying. 

Now what I mean when I say the style is weird, is just that it’s not my style.  So if you like any of the stuff I’m about to show you, that’s great, you should come live in China.  But I’ve already bought a couple articles of clothing that I didn’t really like just because I needed them.  The first thing I noticed when I got here was that the women love to wear tall boots.  And the more rhinestones on them, the better, I guess.

Heart shapes are popular

Another thing is bows.  Bows everywhere!

Bedazzling, heart shapes, and bows; these are three things that come to mind when I think of little girls, not grown women.  So in a nutshell, the biggest difference between American style and Chinese style is American women like to look sexy, Chinese women like to look adorable. 

The second thing I noticed was shorts being worn over black leggings or tights.  And this was happening in the winter too.  But the weather has been really nice lately and I have yet to see anyone’s actual legs without tights covering them.

Bedazzled shorts with tights

A complete outfit, actually pretty cute but I don’t think I could pull off those chains

One more style difference is in the coats.  I saw a lot of coats with empire waists over here, which only pregnant American women would wear. 

Also, there’s a style element I’ve never seen before where the fabric is gathered and cinched below the hips creating a bubbly effect.  Why anyone would want more volume in the hips is beyond me.

Speaking of more volume in the hips, THESE pants are popular too:

The first thing I bought over here was a coat and it had some rhinestones on it (blech) and I really only bought it because it didn’t make me look too fat and I wanted to get away from the pushy sales people.  Shopping is a personal experience for me, I don’t like sharing it with complete strangers.  Particularly when I’m shopping for pants, as I did a few weeks ago.

The jeans I got around Christmas time were getting too baggy (yay!) so I had to go shopping for a new pair.  It was hard because skinny jeans are extremely popular over here. Even people who shouldn’t be wearing them wear them.  And I’m one of those people but I know better than to try to pull them off.  So I had to actually shop around, which sucks.
 
The first store had a cute shirt I liked but all their jeans were too dressy.  They felt like they were made of silk.  They kept bringing me pair after pair but none of them made my butt look good.  And how do you say that in Chinese?  I don’t know, all I did was point to my butt and say “Wo bu xihuan” which means “I don’t like”.  I ended up buying the shirt to get out of there.  The second store had jeans that made my butt look good, but they had some really strange design elements that I couldn’t tolerate.  I was lucky enough to get out of there without purchasing anything.  I finally walked into a jeans store and nobody bothered me.  They stared at me, but I think they really didn’t know what to do.  I picked a pair I liked, told them the size I wanted, tried them on, liked them, and bought them.  That’s what I’m talkin’ about!  The only thing that spoiled this victory just a little bit was the tag that said “size 30 XXL”.  Hahahaha.  I just lost 40 pounds and I’m still an XXL by Chinese standards.  But that’s ok because there are people over here that literally have no butt.  And I do not envy them.