Stylish seniors inspire fashion elite

On the face of it, fashionable lifestyles have little to do with China's senior population. According to the stereotype, they are simply those people who dress in flowery clothing and dance together in squares, or they are the ones rushing to be the first to buy vegetables at low prices.

However, Shanghai's seniors are allowing Qin Xiao to discover a world far from the stereotypical image.

In snaps taken by the 33-year-old freelancer photographer, the stylish seniors show their sharp attitude toward life and their understanding of fashion. They are not professional models or well-known figures, just average people.

Qin posts photos he has taken on the street to his account on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform. He has about 55,000 followers.

"I love retro, and I also love doing something different and choosing a road that fewer people travel. It is common to see young people dressed nicely, but it is special to see that approach among seniors," he said.

Under Qin's lens, some seniors are dressed casually, but stylishly, while others are exquisitely attired.

In a July photo, an old man wears blue silk pajamas patterned with white roses to walk his dog. He pairs his outfit with red-and-blue sneakers, a white baseball cap and a red dog leash.

Comments posted below the snap read: "How is he able to look so stylish in pajamas?"; "I also have a blouse with roses. I am going to find it and put it on"; "I am going to dress like this when I am old"; and "Fashion has nothing to do with age. They are just boys and girls with wrinkles."

In a photo that garnered 45,000 likes, a senior woman pairs white jeans with a white blouse dotted with black leaves. Her short white coiffed hair echoes her pearl earrings and her black tote bag corresponds with her black leather shoes. She wears a pair of black-framed glasses to read messages on her phone.

Comments included: "I am not afraid to grow old any more"; "She must have been leading an elegant life since she was young"; and "I will start to focus on seniors' outfits for inspiration."

Qin explained his idea of snapping seniors' clothing choices, saying that he once saw an elderly man in the street wearing an old-fashioned, stylish jacket of a fabric and style that are no longer available.

"I felt an urge to record him at my first glimpse of the outfit," he said.

'Wild fashion'

Qin prefers what he calls "wild fashion" to dressy styles.

"Most seniors won't dress up in a formal way. They wear whatever they can get their hands on, some of which turns out to be unprecedentedly fashionable. Young people don't dare wear those things. Seniors are on the front line of the trend because they wear clothes according to their own taste rather than sticking to a paradigm," he said.

In 2009, Qin left his hometown of Jining, a city in Shandong province, to work in Shanghai as an assistant at a company that produced photos of furniture for catalogs.

"It was normal for me to work until midnight. I needed to carry heavy furniture and scenery. I always hoped for a traffic jam on the way to the shooting locations so I could take a nap," he said.

Later, he moved to a fashion photography company before becoming a freelance photographer.

In 2018, he began to record the outfits worn by seniors and opened an account on Sina Weibo, which he called Senior Fashion Club.

"At first, I posted photos on the account as if I were writing a diary. A stylist blogger later recommended my account on their WeChat moments, which gained me more followers," he said.

As follower numbers rose, Qin's account received attention from a number of photo magazines, and then other local and national media began to report his story.

Many reporters ask if he has any great purpose in recording senior people's daily outfits, and every time he replies in the negative.

"I take shots of them just because they are beautiful, not because I'm reflecting on the trend of an aging society or anything big. I hope my observations and record can show people the beauty they may ignore in daily life. That's it," he said.

"I don't want to relate my photos to heavy topics, otherwise it wouldn't be a cool thing. The elderly actually care a lot about what they wear. They won't follow the latest trends or a recognized matching formula, but they are always dressed decently."

He seldom prepares before taking photos on the street. He hangs a smartphone, his favored photography tool, around his neck and grabs it instantly when he sees a senior with an eye-catching clothing match.

"It is hard, because I have little time to think about composing a picture, and most people's facial expressions become unnatural in front of a camera," he said, adding that as a freelance worker he has more time to think and observe.

"If I went to work in a hurry every day, I wouldn't have the opportunity to feel and discover the beauty in life," he said.

However, he has found he no longer enjoys a feeling of leisure when he walks around. Whenever he sees a crowd, his eyes are always fixed on well-dressed elderly people.

"After realizing that my mind is always on edge, I try to make myself less nervous so I can take photos that express effortless feeling. It is a very contradictory thing," he said.

He added that when he visited Shanghai's Jing'an Park last year, he was identified by some seniors who had featured in his photos and had read about his work. They told him that they were pleased to see photos that depicted them as fashionable senior citizens.

Last year, Qin held four exhibitions in Shanghai. In January, he launched a campaign called Senior Fashion Cosplay on Sina Weibo in which young people copied the looks sported by seniors in his photos.

He also encouraged people to take their own senior fashion photos on the street, and he chose some to display.

"Most of us tend to neglect people who pass us by in the street, so I hope more people will learn to discover beauty on a daily basis," he said.

Wang Luxi contributed to this story.