What Do Girls Really Wear 2
Skirts! Exorbitant Skirts! A Taxonomy of JY’s Layered Offering
"What Do Girls Really Wear" is a series that explores the process of girls dressing up, dressing down, and dressing cozy in their comfortable o’clock. Through snapshots of girls on the move – collecting, layering, and curating their wardrobes – it captures a relational aesthetics with objects they hold dear (Perhaps a visual moodboard for your 10-minute coffee break, too).
Walking home one afternoon, I overheard a boy – maybe ten years old – inviting his friend to come down and hang out. He glanced at the watch on his wrist, tilting his head slightly, and offered up his assets: two straws and one Sprite to share. A generous proposition, though I’m pretty sure I had yelled at him just the day before, accusing him and his accomplice of setting off fireworks that is strictly prohibited in the neighborhood during the Lunar New Year.
This boy may seem like a tangent, but it serves as an entry point to land on the pristine camaraderie I share with JY. Her bold, unapologetic style caught my attention when we first met – first as Instagram acquaintances, then as irl friends almost two years ago. Our first encounter was during my summer in Chengdu, and since then, she’s become my compass in the city, weaving together my jumbled memories of old and new places. Without her, I doubt my experience of Buyer’s shop, the sheer versatility of it, or even my understanding of China’s evolving market would have felt the same.
JY brings in a bag of skirts on the Q&A chat day
Culling from her outfit repository, I asked if I can feature JY in my series to talk about skirts. She is, to my knowledge, a skirt omnivore, a PhD in dressing up and dressing down in skirts. Here, she breaks down the skirt into three categories: ‘dress to impress,’ the statement piece, and low-profile, everyday pieces. Both reflect a sedimentation of maturity as she ripens and grows.
1. School-Day Bumpin' That Phase
This Marine Serre ruffled flared dress, with its eclectic mix of colors and sportif edge, feels like a sartorial echo of JY’s grad school days in London – dashing between seminars, Wing Wing fried chicken after, and weaving through midweek outings on Wednesdays/Thursdays. The sportswear-inspired silhouette almost hums with the energy of those moments, like a visual nod to Lily Allen’s LDN—Sun is in the sky, oh why, oh why / Would I wanna be anywhere else?
All these three Marine Serre dresses encapsulate an outwardness JY confessed at the time, a way to dress to impress at seminar or Frieze London to get attention where strangers come up to you and praise, “the most beautiful dresses I’ve seen in the past few days…”
All dresses are from 2019-2020 with a recurring iterations of certain playful notes. However, knowing this extreme state of mind is perceptibly transient, “it’s unbreathable” hence unsustainable to personal wellbeing. Growing by knowing the fact where validation comes from inside. JY switches to another mode where she thrifts lots of Prada and CDG skirts across Nottinghill, Xianyu (the Chinese depop platform), and Vestaire Collective.
Circulatory Breathable Phase
CDG Tricot pinky patchy skirt
This phase involves topping it off with hench sweaters, hoodies, or other fixed staple upper wear – ideally monochrome – to accentuate the oftentimes vibrancy of the skirt. One of the biggest struggles with thrift shopping is sizing, which can be tricky and a lot of times requires extra layering. But! This also provides a perfectly logical reason to experiment with dress-up combos featuring pants and skirts.
A 2017 Prada full skirt Yuke is wearing.
Prada ‘earth-like’ patterned skirt 地球裙
A Courrèges polka dot skirt, bought in Tibet
Molly Goddard blue and black checkered skirt
A day in JY’s life:
On January 26th, she made an oat milk latte for her mom. An argument followed, leading to two hours of silence. During that time, she reflected on not punishing herself for her mom’s habit of acting without permission – like the unsolicited, unapproved deep cleaning of three bedrooms.
The day's food highlights included strawberry cake, a kidney dish, twice-cooked spicy pork, and sour soup beef rice. Later, JY went to the cocktail bar Cowcow and ordered a grape drink, which she described as tasting like very sour craft beer with a hint of wheat.
By the end of the day, it was her mom who broke the silence with a simple “You’re back” and asked her to gift a doll to Grandma.
On a sweet side note, I have to highlight a special skirt JY brought into the mix – a bright red miniskirt her mom wore at her wedding in 1997. The lining? Pink. She bought it on Jianshe Road in Chengdu, which, as my mom confirmed, was the garment hub in the late ’90s. JY’s mom paid over 1,000 RMB for it (about $150 USD at the time).
JY’s recent consumption:
《草民》蔡崇达
Jane Goodall’s interview
The Substance
Dubai Bling
Circularity, for JY is the ability to mix and match pieces already in her wardrobe, “regenerating” outfits that feel both every day and fun. It is the ability to recycle and repurpose existing materials.
I had a lot of informative takeaways writing this series, sorry about posting it later than usual, and I hope you all enjoy reading it!