In the last few years a new term has re-emerged that is now lavishly spread unto anyone semi-famous for something we are not really sure about, usually some ‘renaissance’ pretty girl that dabbles in modelling, DJing, perhaps a touch of acting or a fashion blogger inclined to carefully produced ‘selfies’… The IT girl.  The phenomenon isn’t new, Clara Bow in the 20’s was one of the first.  Everyone back then wanted to emulate the actress pouty lips and hair cut.

In the mid 60’s Edie Sedgwick took the top spot and every girl wanted to copy her platinum locks and faux-eyelashed makeup.  Today Sienna Miller (who played Edie in a movie), Alexa Chung, Lou Doillon and all are working hard to either maintain or shed this dubious status.

Men, weirdly do not really have It-boys, at least none that springs immediately to mind.

China might have one in the social/fashion/rich boy wonder/blogger Han Huo Huo but he is more notorious for his dubious (read tacky) fashion sense abroad than in China, so the term « It-boy » is yet to be coined.

And yet, Chinese men do love fashion and many, as I mention here regularly, are very stylish indeed.

Men represent a majority chunk of the luxury industry in China and it is never more obvious than at a Fashion party.

Last Friday the Hong Kong based quiet giant I.T. finally opened its high-end Beijing branch in the new shopping mall ‘Park View Green’ with a generous ‘open-doors’ party just in time to coincide with its Silver Jubilee Anniversary.  The multi-brands store is unexpectedly vast with 2000 square meters spread over two levels and over 56 fashion brands on display, yet the store design is both airy and intimate. The collections are carefully curated to please the Beijing cool moneyed ‘young crowd’ with different designers like D-Square or Kenzo presented on quasi equal footing with Saint Laurent Paris or Lanvin and hard-to-find in China niche brands like Pierre Hardy or Ann Demeulemeester. After the massive Beijing IT Street Market in Sanlitun, the recently opened massive partnership with Galeries Lafayette in Xidan and its own brands in boutiques all over mainland luxury malls, Sham Kar Kai’s group seems poised to dominate the high-end to mid-levels luxury markets in China.

What struck me the most at the I.T. opening was how stylish the men were. Not just the boys or fashion students that I so often cross at parties or in the streets of Beijing, but the MEN. They were fabulously dressed, and it felt like the efforts were made for themselves and not to impress. A quiet (r)evolution that I feel is quite recent.

Of course, it’s all in the details, and those details were carefully thought-out and flawlessly executed.

I will post about the wonderful girls I saw before the weekend, but had to share Beijing IT boys first.

I did not expect to find a touch of quaint Switzerland on a Beijing dandy.

I also loved the touch of ‘skulls and daggers’ mixed with a more classic elegance.

The store barely opened, some clients already busy shopping.

A bientôt,

(and happy sailings to  I.T. Park View Green.)

b.

La version française de ce blog est sur la page STYLE du Monde.fr  « Swinging Pékin »   Le Monde:http://bit.ly/1cm0Jjm

中国版本 on China Vogue http://bit.ly/184cFDy

Instagram & Bomoda: benedicte Beijing –  Facebook: Fearless-in-beijing.com

PS: because the party was not only about the boys, one Belle du Jour dressed by Chinese designer Vega Wang. (until Friday…)