Sidenote: am I the only one who did not know that Cronuts are a cross between donuts and a croissants. Because I totes thought they were a type of nut. Also, I saw Ai Wei Wei and his team working up on the second floor, but was mentally fangirling too hard to think of a functional way to say hi. Next time then.
Hong Kong was a flash, a wink, yet a decade ago. I think I’ve grown up a lot during and since that trip back in January. I stayed at Lanson Place in Causeway bay, which provided a peaceful retreat from long adventurous days.
Love Pillowbook top, Stefanel blazer, Nike sweatpants, Nike sneakers.
Every time I’m walking into a hutong, I feel like I’m back playing Pokemon on my Gameboy Color and Ash is walking along those grassy areas and eek! a wild Caterpie appears. Except in a hutong, it’s more likely to be an elderly Beijinger shouting at you for being, well, you.
Anyway. What I’m trying to say is that you always end up finding something magical and unexpected. Even the faint whisks of toxic smog add some charm to these walkways. Yep, I just made pollution #romantic.
These photos were shot by Irene the other day outside her Hutong studio. I’m wearing a dudou top from her label Pillowbook. You can read more about it in the interview I did with her here. Also since I’m not allowed to wear anything but sneakers for the next half year because of my damsel-in-distress of an ankle, I might as well join the sneakerwear bandwagon officially and cop some new stuff. In the meantime, here are my Nike Air Forces, falling apart and all.
A couple months ago, I teamed up with YETANG and big bro Nick to produce one of their monthly lookbooks. The theme was Back to School with a cool girl’s twist – complete with fake hot pink hair extensions – so we decided to shoot on my campus at Peking University.
Natasia Guo, founder of YETANG, and her team have been doing an incredible job bringing entrepreneurial startup vibes to Beijing. There are numerous well-curated online concept stores in the US/UK/Europe (Fab, LN-CC, Opening Ceremony) but in China this is a rarity. Besides Taobao – which is essentially a messy bomb dot com that sells everything you can imagine while inducing intense ADD and FOMO – there aren’t that many platforms selling well-designed products. YETANG fills that market gap and it’s exciting to see a fellow banana starting the waves. And yep, that was a hint towards the next victim for my #GIRLCRUSH interview series. Stay tuned yo.
Photographed by Victoria Jin | Styling by Zoe Zou | Makeup by Xiao Ming 晓明 | All clothes available on Yetang.com