The children’s clothing department at Uniclo in China has received an unexpected new customer: an adult woman.
In a recent viral challenge to succeed on Chinese social media, women pose for dressing-room selfies in children’s t-shirts from the Japanese fashion giant. There has been a heated debate over whether this trend promotes body shaming, with experts expressing concern that it strengthens the country’s health standards for beauty.
Tina Rochelle, an associate professor of social and behavioral sciences, said: “This is a dangerous trend, not only in terms of pushing women and girls through thinness and pressure, but also in terms of explicit sexualization of women.” At City University in Hong Kong who conducts research on the influence of gender and culture on health. He said that small clothes are more likely to be tighter and more fitting on a woman’s body.
On Weibo, a microblogging platform, where the hashtag “Adult Efforts on Uniclo Children’s Clothing” has been viewed 80,880 million times, has been challenged by those who object to unrealistic beauty standards and criticized those who express concern. Pulling clothes and rendering them impossible.
One user called it ‘another way to show off white, young, thin’ aesthetics, referring to the phrase commonly used to describe the country’s impressive beauty standard. The person added: “It emphasizes the shame of the unwanted body and should be resisted firmly.”
Another critic wrote: “Although I envy those women’s figures, they should buy clothes after trying! The clothes are all stretched, how can the kids wear them! ”
Uniclo did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
The challenge is labeled the latest iteration of the “BM style”, a kind of fashion recently popularized by the cult’s Italian brand Brandy Melville, which is young, casual and thin at the top (its stores have only one size: extra small ).
Since the brand opened its first Chinese store in Shanghai in 2019, it has become an aspiring symbol for young women who want to squeeze her clothes. An unofficial sizing chart spread across Weibo showed how much weight women at different heights would have to fit for – a 5-foot-3 woman needs to weigh 95 pounds.
Brandi Melville did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Jia Ta Tan, an assistant professor of cultural studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the apparel industry is a leading driver in what is believed to be a “standard” size change. The same size in Asia is usually smaller than in the West, he said, and a significant portion of the population is exclusively excluded from the “standard” size.
“I think we first need to question the tremendous social pressures on women, and before pointing fingers at adult women who appear to be the size of children, why should the apparel industry have so much power in standardizing how we look? ” Said an email.
Before this, Chinese online challenges have gone viral on Chinese social media. In 201 In, women – and some men – posed with their waists behind a sheet of A4 paper to show that they were “paper thin”.
The challenge was so popular that celebrities took part and it was covered by the Chinese state media, with one feminist campaigner, Zheng Churan, being asked to write “I love my fat waist” on a piece of paper lying on his waist.
In 2015, for the “Belly Button Challenge”, people reached for an arm behind their backs and around their waists to touch the belly button – apparently to brag about how thin they were.
There seems to be some growing awareness about body positivity in China. A few months ago, a store responded by labeling the size of a large woman’s clothing as “rotten,” prompting an apology.
But when Dr. Rochelle, a professor at City University in Hong Kong, notes that when women try to shave and share their experiences, there are few signs that much of society is changing.
“It doesn’t look like fat is being used here and discussing a woman’s weight in public has a big impact on a person’s well-being,” he said.
