Bell-bottoms and Sunglasses

In the early 1980s, China opened its doors to the outside world. This event coincided with the end of the popularity of bell-bottoms in the West, and a subsequent craze for bell-bottoms swept across China. These broad-legged trousers evolved from sailors' trousers. Because seawater often spilled onto the deck, water often got into sailors' boots - they changed the shape of the trouser legs to cover their boots, protecting them from the water.

Sailor's trousers were discovered by designers and worn on the catwalk. Actually, Gin men and women from China's southern coastal region all wear loose broad-legged trousers, but these fishermen's loose trousers are made of thin material, whereas sailors' trousers are made of thick, hard-wearing material.

When young people wearing bell-bottoms first swaggered through the streets of cities in China, they elicited quite a reaction - bell-bottomed trousers were very unusual at the time and their tight fit above the knee appeared indecent to conservative Chinese. In addition to bell-bottoms, people wore the rest of their clothes a little tighter and shorter than before.

Some people wrote articles in newspapers declaring that bell-bottoms originated in China during the Wei and Jin dynasties, and that men wore bell-bottoms in that period. These articles were accompanied by photographs of Wei and Jin brick paintings as visual evidence. In fact, the images showed bondage trousers, which were derived from "short coats" with trousers. Parts of these trousers were tied below the knee with silk bands, and parts above the knees were loose. Bell-bottoms were tight above the knee, and bell-shaped below the knee.

The impact of bell-bottoms on Chinese clothing cannot be underestimated. They not only introduced Chinese people to differently-shaped clothes, they also made people look taller – young people began to admire Westerners' physique. When recruiting employees or looking for boyfriends or girlfriends, the height requirements for men and women rose from 1.65 meters and 1.55 meters in the 1950s and 1960s to 1.75 meters and 1.65 meters respectively in the 1980s. Some men even wanted to marry taller women.

Bell-bottoms played a pioneering role in the introduction of Western clothes into China, but they remained popular for a short time and were replaced by a whole variety of trousers such as straight-legged trousers, peg-top trousers and boss trousers. At the end of the 1990s, bell-bottoms returned - as they did all over the world - and second time around, people were not shocked. Trousers were shortened and then lengthened. Sometimes the upper part of the trouser was loose, and sometimes the lower part was loose. People looked forward to new styles, and Chinese fashion began to develop freely.

As China began to reform and open up, sunglasses came to the country, along with bell-bottoms. When sunglasses first spread to the mainland from Hong Kong and Macao in the late 1970s and early 1980s, very large ones were popular. Because they looked like frog's eyes, people called them "frog glasses" or "panda glasses." Some people wore their sunglasses loudly and proudly, and were unwilling to take off the labels - because they wanted to retain proof that they were genuine imported goods.

This constant cultural exchange with foreign countries ensured a thriving fashion - and sunglasses - market. Various brands launched different styles of sunglasses, some with color-changing lenses, opening up a vast market. Sunglasses became a vital part of fashionable clothing, clipped onto T-shirt neckbands, hanging on metal necklaces, acting as ornaments.

In the mid- and late 1990s, sunglasses were influenced by European fashion, particularly that of Paris. At first lenses became small and changed from a round shape to a horizontal oval shape; then the color of the lenses changed from brown to a blackish-blue or smoky color, as if they had been burned. In China, small oval sunglasses reminded people of the 1930s, and people found it amusing that this style had come back into fashion.

Another change in the way people wore sunglasses was that they were worn sitting perched on the forehead - they were commonly referred to as "small planes" because they resembled the goggles on top of flying helmets worn by pilots in the past.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the horizontal oval shape of sunglass lenses evolved into a horizontal olive shape, with two pointed ends. Today, people still wear sunglasses on their foreheads, and people still covet them as essential fashion accessories.