Short-video producers feed on growing interest in ancient Chinese dress, make-up and music, drawing millions of followers online
- Vloggers in China have drawn millions of followers for videos of themselves promoting ancient Chinese culture – fashion, make-up, dance and music
- The number of videos promoting Chinese national style uploaded to short-video platform Bilibili rose 60 per cent in the space of a year
With over half a million fans on popular Chinese short-video platform Bilibili, Aigis Zhang’s make-up videos are visually sumptuous affairs. Ensconced in ancient royal palace settings or study rooms replete with calligraphic brushes and parchment, she hams it up for the camera wearing make-up and clothing styled after that of the Tang dynasty, which ruled China from the seventh to the 10th centuries.
Known on Bilibili as Qiyei, Zhang says she loves ancient Chinese styles and looks. “The Tang dynasty was a glorious period in history. The women sported brightly coloured and beautiful get-ups and hairdos,” she says.
Zhang is one of a growing number of young Chinese people who make short videos to promote Chinese national style, or guofeng. Their videos are so successful that some vloggers have become big online influencers, with millions of followers and lucrative sponsorship deals.
She said the interest in guofeng is an extension of that in Chinese fashion, or guochao. Guochao is a recent buzzword which initially referred to home-grown streetwear brands, but which now encompasses any Chinese aesthetic that counters style references from the West.