China’s ‘beach balaclava’ goes global
- CR Fashion Book
Call it China’s latest contribution to global fashion: the beach balaclava, or as it’s called in Chinese, the “face-bikini.”
The headgear was invented two years ago by a group of middle-aged women who were determined to avoid a sun tan at all costs. This is China after all, where tans are often seen as something for peasant laborers, and “face-whitening creams” do a brisk business.
And so, the beach balaclava, covering the entire face and neck, leaving only the eyes, nostrils and mouth exposed with four small openings. And beside shielding the skin from sunlight, its makers also say the product will drive away jellyfish, though it’s not exactly clear how.
In any event, the rest of the world appears to be warming to the face-bikini: Carine Roitfeld, former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, is featuring the beach balaclava in her own magazine of style, CR Fashion Book.
In a piece titled “Masking in the Sun: A Hidden Retreat in This Season’s Swimwear” in the Aug. 7 issue of CR Fashion Book, Roitfeld offers up a photo gallery of models posing in the beach balaclavas.
This isn’t the first time that the beach balaclava has drawn the curiosity of the West. Time Magazine, for instance, featured the item in its Top 10 Most Surprising Photos of 2012 .
But the beach balaclava is not without its critics.
Iqilu.com, a government-run news site in the eastern city of Qingdao (where the beach balaclava was invented), referred to it as the “shocking costume of the masked superwomen.” And when it was introduced, the face-bikini reportedly scared beach-going children, with reports of some breaking out in tears at the site of it.
— Laura He
Follow Laura on Twitter at @lauraliuhe
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/themargin/2014/08/15/chinas-beach-balaclava-goes-global/
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