Dressing up in hanfu, JK uniforms and Lolita costumes used to be considered a niche hobby, but now, young Chinese consumers have embraced these trends. So much so that these three types of clothing are now a 10 billion RMB market. On Taobao, the search volume for “hanfu” has surpassed the search volume for “shirts”. And recently, just a few days after a new JK skirt was listed, more than 300k pieces were sold. People who like dressing up in one of these three styles tend to be rabid fans. If they like it, they love it, and they are very willing to open up their wallets to buy those clothes. What is Hanfu and Why do Young Chinese Consumers Love it? Thus, these three types of clothes are nicknamed the “Three Broke Sisters” among Chinese consumers. What is Hanfu? In Chinese “fu” means clothing, so many people would think that Hanfu is clothing originating from the Han Dynasty, but actually, it’s not. Han is not only the name of a dynasty, but of an ethnicity. In fact, the majority of Chinese people are ethnically Han Chinese. So Hanfu means any traditional clothing of the Han ethnicity. It covers many dynasties, until the 17th century, at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. Hanfu’s history can be traced back to Huang Di (黄帝), the first emperor of China. The average price of a top or a dress costs around 300 – 500 RMB, which is affordable for students or people who just start their careers. The majority of Hanfu consumers are post-95s and post-00s. In 2019, the transaction volume of Hanfu clothing on Taobao reached 2 billion RMB. For a very long time, dressing up in Hanfu remained a niche hobby. The turning point was the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in China in 2014. It is set rule of the forum that leaders from different countries must wear the host country’s traditional dress. The development and maturation of Chinese social media channels has also helped the trend go mainstream. There are many forums and groups for Hanfu lovers from all across the country to connect. And this is when Hanfu showed up after a long time of being silent in public. Now there are over 600K posts about Hanfu on Xiaohongshu. They have strong sense of community since not everyone is interested in this dressing style and they have a strong a sense of belonging finding someone who shares the same interest. Back in 2013 and 2014, students at Chinese universities started to build Hanfu clubs. This also helped Hanfu to become known by more people. It’s Taobao. Unlike our everyday clothes which we can pick them up in offline stores, you don’t find Hanfu stores easily, even now. But what has been the biggest driver of Hanfu’s current popularity? Taobao provides a platform for Hanfu sellers to present their designs and for Hanfu lovers to browse. Now, their sales volume reaches over 10k a month. Chen Chen (辰辰), manager of a Taobao Hanfu store called Rumeng Nishang (如梦霓裳) said they founded the store in 2007. But Hanfu was not popular back then and they sold around 10 pieces every month. Good thing they were persistent! JK uniforms are essentially Japanese style high school uniforms for girls. The uniform became extremely popular in recent years. A key reason for the growing popularity of JK uniforms is that, those people who liked ACG (anime, comics, games) as kids have now grown up and they are wearing clothes that represent their interests. According to a ACG report published by IT Juzi (IT桔子) in March 2020, the scale of ACG clothing wearers is expanding quickly. In 2019, the amount of people who bought ACG clothes reached 340 million and in 2020, it is expected that the number would grow to 387 million. 制服) has over 24.6 billion views. On Xiaohongshu, a recent hot topic about people wearing JK uniforms to see Sakura blossoms in March is very popular with 1.38 million views. The word “Lolita” came from a novel in 1955 by Vladimir Nabokov. Along with this key factor, there is also the fact that many popular TV series and reality shows are filming celebrities wearing JK uniforms, especially those campus love TV shows. The story tells a love story between a 12-year-old girl and a middle-aged professor. The story was filmed as a movie and in 1997, the movie was re-filmed in Japan and the style started becoming known and popular. A full Lolita style outfit is not cheap. Currently, there are over 90K posts about Lolita clothing on Xiaohongshu and the hashtag Lolita on Douyin has over 1.4 billion views. Take the example of a Japanese classic Lolita brand Angelic Pretty. In addition to the price, customers usually need to wait a long time for their beloved dress. It takes two months to two years, depending on the number of people waiting in line and the manufacturing process that a dress needs. It used to be very strange seeing someone wearing these types of clothes on the street. But now, it’s a very common to see this type of thing, especially I now that I have moved to Shanghai, a city that is open to every culture and communities. The dress costs around 1,000 to 2,500 RMB, accessories cost 150 RMB, so in total, the set costs around 2,000 RMB. As I am doing research for this article, I actually kind of want to buy a JK uniform and wait until next year’s cherry blossom season to take photos like users did on Xiaohongshu. Maybe I will contribute to the growth of this market too!
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