Is China imposing a national dress code?

Just when you thought the Mao jacket is going to get fashionable on the high street, there’s news from the Middle Kingdom about couture censorship. No, the Beijing House of Fashion isn’t imposing a stitchdown on what aunties and uncles here consider to be ‘too revealing’ clothes that may be straying too far from the sanskari catalogue. In China, changes are being sought to be made in the law that could fine and detain people found wearing clothes that ‘hurt the nation’s feelings’.

How the National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee that is seeking the ban intends to identify clothes ‘detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese nation’ is yet to be elaborated. But in tow with the growing ‘Hanfu‘ movement – China’s version of sartorial ‘decolonisation’ that favours traditional clothes worn by the Han Chinese before the 17th-early 20th century Qing dynasty (kind of their Nehru-Gandhis) – suits are being seen as symbols of ‘Western capitalism’. Ergo, wearing suit-boots-skirts may be seen as cocking a snook at the greatness of the great Chinese nation. So, where does that put the dapper dark suits worn by the likes of Xi Jinping? Perhaps the law will start by targeting that old bugbear of all conservatives whether in Western-style clubs in Kolkata or grumpy administered colleges in Tehran: jeans. Thankfully, India is not that tight-collared.