Elsbeth van Paridon | China's Contemporary Fashion & Underground Culture Scene

<p><strong>Topics Discussed and Key Points:</strong></p><p>●      <em>Contemporary China</em> through the lens of fashion and culture</p><p>●      The new thinking around fashion and individuality among China’s younger generations</p><p>●      China’s fashion scene today and how it differs from that of New York</p><p>●      Does China have fashion icons?</p><p>●      China’s urban underground scene</p><p>●      The future of fashion in China</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Episode Summary:</strong></p><p>Today on The Negotiation, we speak with Elsbeth van Paridon, a sinologist, journalist, and lover of China fashion, lifestyle, and urban culture. In 2018, Elsbeth founded The China Temper, a print and digital publication which “offers a gritty slash grungy look at contemporary China through a fashion-focused lens.”</p><p>Aside from her work with The China Temper, Elsbeth serves as an editorial consultant at the Beijing Review, an editor at WeAr Global Magazine, and a contributor to SupChina and RADII China.</p><p>“With economic development comes the development of the individual,” says Elsbeth. With regards to fashion and culture, for the longest time Chinese people as a whole have shied away from standing out from the crowd as individuals. However, in the last decade, those living in Tier 1 cities have largely shifted away from this attitude dramatically.</p><p>Elsbeth gives her thoughts on the idea of <em>individuality </em>in the country, from the rigid conformism of Mao’s China to a new generation “caught between tradition and innovation”. She refers to the modern fashion scene itself not as “trendsetting” but as “trend-dictating”, driven by the power of the <em>stories </em>behind the clothes.</p><p>She goes on to speak on China’s urban underground, particularly in Beijing (as she contends that “everything in Shanghai is above-ground”) and the trends that have emerged out of it, such as tattoos.</p><p>Finally, Elsbeth believes that gender-fluid fashion—which unbeknownst to most actually has st