Chinese craze of women squeezing into children’s clothes sparks body image concerns

Chinese social media is flooded with pictures of women in children’s T-shirts in the fitting rooms of Uniqlo

People walk past a Uniqlo store in Beijing on February 28, 2019 (AFP via Getty Images)

A new trend of Chinese women posting pictures of themselves trying on clothes from the children’s section has sparked concerns that it negatively affects body image. 

Xiaohongshu and Weibo — China’s Instagram and Twitter — have been flooded with pictures of women wearing children’s T-shirts in the changing rooms of Uniqlo, a Japanese retailer, according to BBC. 

The report said that the trend has triggered debate because it shows how obsessed Chinese women are with a thin body. 

The Uniqlo trend is called the “BM style”. It takes its name from Italian clothing brand Brandy Melville, popular for only stocking extra small and small sizes, according to South China Morning Post. 

Fashion bloggers said they preferred children’s clothes for their colourful designs and cheaper price as compared to adult clothing, the report said. 

One of the criticisms of the trend is that customers don’t always buy the clothes they try on and instead leave the stretched t-shirts in the fitting rooms after taking pictures. 

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Uniqlo staff told South China Morning Post that the customers often ruined the clothing by either stretching it, or staining it with a lip print or their make-up. 

The Independent has reached out to Uniqlo for a comment.

Meanwhile, the trend has also sparked concerns that it is promoting an unhealthy body image and can increase incidents of body shaming. 

A 27-year-old Chinese woman, who lives in Paris, told Global Times that she hates the BM style. She said she finds it “vulgar and disrespectful” to women that a piece of clothing seems to be able to control whether a woman feels good about herself. It also denies the fact that women can actually feel confident by getting rid of “bullshit ideas of being thin, young and perfect,” she said. 

Several such trends have gone viral in China in the past. In 2016, women and some men posted pictures of themselves on social media to show that they were paper thin. They held up a piece of A4 paper vertically to cover their waists.