‘Baby spicy style’ fashion that parades little girls in tight skirts and low-cut dresses slammed by Chinese state media, derided as ‘pornography’
- China’s official media has taken a firm stance against a growing fashion trend which sees little girls dressed up in ‘sexy’ adult outfits
- Majority of people on social media rail against the trend with some saying it is tantamount to pornography
The emergence in China of a sexualised children’s fashion trend known as “baby spicy style” has created an online furore after mainland state media slammed the phenomenon as “twisted”.
The style, which sees little girls striking sexy poses in low-cut dresses, crop tops and high-waist trousers – scaled down versions of adult women’s clothing – has become trendy among children’s wear e-commerce shops and parenting influencers in China in recent years.
The term “baby spicy style”, or naila in Mandarin, was invented by followers of the genre to describe the contrasting mixture of children’s innocence and the “spicy girl” style of dress.
Chinese official news website People’s Daily Online posted a commentary on July 18 condemning it as an “inappropriate and uncomfortable” style that only benefits traffic-chasing merchants and parents but leaves children with “a twisted childhood”.
According to the state-owned newspaper Legal Daily, the criticism came after the parents of a Beijing girl, aged around six to eight, ignored an extracurricular class teacher’s advice to change their daughter’s “sexy” low-cut dress and black pantyhose on July 10.
The parents’ nonchalant attitude reflects the popularity of such fashion in China.