When the weather got cold in December, Cindy Luo began wearing fluffy pajamas over a hoodie at the office. Wearing comfortable nightwear to work became a habit, and shortly she stopped even bothering to placed on fitted tops and bottoms, selecting what was most comfortable.
A couple of months later, she posted photos of herself in a “disgusting work outfits” thread that spread on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese app much like Instagram. She was certainly one of tens of hundreds of young staff in China who proudly posted photos of themselves at the office in overalls, sweatpants and sandals with socks. The appearance of somebody who had just rolled away from bed was shockingly abnormal in most Chinese workplaces.
“I just want to wear what I like,” said Ms. Luo, 30, an interior designer from Wuhan, a city in Hubei province. “I just don’t think it’s worth spending money on getting dressed for work if I’m just sitting there.”
Defying expectations of appropriate work attire reflects the growing reluctance amongst Chinese youth to live a lifetime of ambition and endeavor that has characterised the past few many years. As the country’s development slows and promising opportunities dwindle, many young people select as an alternative to “lie still,” a countercultural approach to looking for a straightforward and uncomplicated life. And now even those that have everlasting jobs are organizing a silent protest.
The intentionally bland outfits became a movement on social media when a user named “Kendou S-” posted video last month on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister service. She showed off her work outfit: a fluffy brown sweater dress over plaid pajama pants, a lightweight pink quilted jacket and fur slippers.
In the recording, she said that a supervisor at work told her several times that her outfit was “disgusting” and that she needed to wear higher clothes “so as not to damage the company’s image.”
The film took off; it received over 735,000 likes and was shared 1.4 million times. The hashtag “disgusting work outfits” spread across many Chinese social media platforms and sparked a contest to search out probably the most disgusting work outfit. On Weibo, China’s version of
“This is the progress of our times,” said Xiao Xueping, a psychologist from Beijing. She said young people grew up in a comparatively more inclusive environment than previous generations and learned to place their very own feelings first.
Xiao said these outfits generally is a type of responsible protest because individuals are still doing their jobs. It can be an indication of how countries are reassessing values and priorities as they achieve higher levels of prosperity.
People’s Daily, the major newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, criticized young people for “lying idle” in a 2022 editorial, encouraging them to maintain working hard. Since then, he has echoed the recommendation of Xi Jinping, China’s leader, who urged young people to “eat the bitterness,” a colloquial expression which means enduring hardship.
But People’s Daily stops in need of chastising young Chinese men for what it calls “being ugly” at work. The publication states that this tendency is a type of self-irony and that “there is no need to exaggerate it to become a fundamental problem” so long as employees are dressed appropriately and have attitude to work.
Working from home through the pandemic has modified workplace dynamics all over the world. In the United States, many firms have faced resistance to the decision to return to work, and commuting five days per week isn’t any longer a given for a lot of firms. After three years of living under China’s stringent Covid restrictions, Chinese staff don’t mind going to the office – but many wish to accomplish that on their terms and in comfortable clothes.
Most of the responses to the “disgusting outfits at work” posts got here from women. In China, as in lots of places all over the world, women are held to the next standard in terms of office attire, while men’s attire often requires less thought. For the just about exclusively male officials of the Communist Party of China, the selection of dress is kind of easy – “ting ju feng”, or “office style”. It is the gentle and understated look of a typical mid-level bureaucrat, the style favored by Mr. Xi.
A friend of Joeanna Chen, 32, a translator at a beauty clinic in Hangzhou, posted photos of her wardrobe on social media with the caption: “Guess how long it will take for the boss to talk to her?” (Ms. Chen’s friend obtained her permission to publish the photos.)
Ms. Chen wore a mango-colored down coat and a white hat covering her ears. She had matching blue and beige sleeve caps emblazoned with cows on her shoulders. She wore black pants and pink and blue checkered socks and granny-style fur loafers.
Ms. Chen stated that she was aware that this outfit, her usual office attire, was not very stylish, but she didn’t care since it was comfortable. The sleeve covers were made by her grandmother. The sweater was an inheritance from her mother, and the hat had once belonged to her son.
She said her boss once asked her to wear something sexier to work, but she ignored his request. In addition, for the primary time she began to reject tasks she didn’t wish to do.
After years of unpredictable isolation, quarantines and fear of getting sick through the pandemic, Ms. Chen said all she wanted now was to live within the moment, have a stable job and a quiet life. He doesn’t worry about promotions and promotions.
“Just be happy every day and don’t impose anything on yourself,” she said.
For Jessica Jiang, 36, who works in e-commerce sales for a clothing company in Shanghai, her “disgusting” appearance is more all the way down to her messy hair and lack of makeup.
Ms. Jiang said she did not have enough time to prepare within the morning as a result of her hour-long commute. She said she dressed randomly, throwing clothes on. Recently, the result was a sweater that was too short to cover a thermal undershirt. “Everyone is focused on their work, no one bothers about dressing up,” Ms. Jiang said. “You just have to do your job.”
However, Lulu Mei, 30, a bank clerk within the eastern city of Wuhu, said she needed to wear a uniform each day: a navy blue jacket, fitted trousers and a light-colored button-up shirt. She said that if it weren’t for this requirement, she too might eventually stop dressing nicely because “all the work is tiring.”
Ms. Luo, an interior designer who wears fluffy pajamas to work, said there have been days when she dressed more conventionally – for instance when going out with friends after work or when her pajamas were within the laundry. She says she loves fashion. While at work, she listens to runway music from the most recent Chanel show from Paris Fashion Week.
When she joined her company three years ago, she wore coats to look more mature and ready her outfits the night before. Over time, she became tired of it and started to query the practice.
“I feel like I don’t know what I’m going to wear,” Ms. Luo said. “I just want to live a little more my own way.”
