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Winter Fashion Trends: Qipu Lu Ghetto Gear

A trip down the aisles of a classic Shanghai shopping destination. Here's what Qipu Lu's stocking for winter 2015.
Last updated: 2015-12-09
Hey everybody, so great to see you all again. Hey, just in case you were wondering, why yes, Qipu Lu IS still a baffling and incomprehensible fucking shopping calamity organized and deployed to grind your soul into a fine mist of diamond dust oblivion and then sell it a suitcase.

Qipu Lu, man -- Shanghai's original fake goods market -- it's still there, man, it's still there. Totally still there. In full effect. Went and checked it out for one of my ZANY ARTICLES re: Christmas shopping and, my God, what a forlorn experience.

Qipu Lu -- it's the same as it was like 10 years ago. Everything is the same. Everything. You know those Shanghai city scene urban time-lapse video things unemployed French photographers are always clogging up your Facebook feed with? Like "Shanghai's Bund in a Day!" Or "Shanghai's Bund in a Year!" Or "Shanghai's Bund in a Decade!" If you did one of those time-lapses of Qipu Lu it would just be a guy screaming WATCHBAG in your face and methodically rotting into a bubbling pile of flesh, and then exploding into a pile of bones, like the guy who drank out of the wrong cup in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusdade.

"He chose... poorly."

Anyway, so SmartShanghai did a little photo gallery of Qipu Lu stuff for the Winter Fashion Season, 2015. Which I don't know why we did, but we did. Think this works as a cautionary tale and a "hey, look at some pictures" sort of thing.

Let's shop, you beautiful bitches.

(OoooOOOo Hi doggg! Who's a good boy, who's a good boy! You are! Yes you are!)



Let's talk tops. So yeah, lots of sweaters in the ole Qipu Lu. We're talking pink fluffy ones, graphic ones, patterned ones, cashmere, "street wear" style, sports ones, and Disney characters, Disney characters, Disney characters. I guess Qipu Lu has changed a little in the decade since I've last been in that I didn't see a lot of high-end European fashion house knock-offs as much as there used to be. Everything used to be like Prada, Fendi, Gucci, etc., etc., etc., Pasmina scarves, Pashmina scarves, Pashmina scarves, and then Titleist golf gear and Lacoste shirts for the husbands that got dragged along.

Seems like they finally clamped down on that stuff. Didn't see too much Yves St. Laurent. Not much Tommy Hilfigher. The knock-offs are sort of hidden now, in among the piles and piles of wool and fabric miscellany perhaps best described as "esprite de Hurricade Katrina clothing donation box."















It's all kinda like a bad movie that wasn't bad enough to be good or good enough to be bad. The statement isn't bold enough either way. That's my professional fashion critic opinion. (Stress on the "professional".) What you've got is just a lot of cheaper clothes without a lot of potential for a classic "ironic sweater" look. Or even those "Chinglish" shirts that people like to make Buzzfeed lists about. Not a lot of those either.

Everything is like... great for the Halloween costume "Depressed Person Smelling Vaguely of Pee That Needs a Hug".

Or like "Golden Girl Going Through the Breakup of the Century".

They did, however, offer tons of "Real Housewives of Wuxi" wear. Lots of quasi-lux winter and formal wear for affluent ladies cutting shapes as the signification other for some sort of rural coal baron despot.



Could really strike a pose busting a chair over some hapless ayi's back in one of these, methinks.



If you want a vision of the future, image one of these stamping on your face -- forever.



Goofy: so hot right now.



As are perplexing logical paradoxes.



WERK, QWEEN.



It's a heart with a mustache. This sweater, it vexes me.



Oh, check this out: In among the usual touts, following around your perceived rich whiteness like moths to a broke and not interested flame, there's a new breed of Qipu Lu tout -- dudes trying to sell you street-side tattoos. This a sample board of the fine craftsmanship on offer in the back alley's of Qipu Lu's pop-up tattoo scene. This dude was just walking around with this board like WATCHBAGTATTOOS.

Classic tramp stamps circa 1997 and tattoos that the bad guys have in the original Nintendo game "Double Dragon" seem to be the order of the day. Dunno bruh, maybe I can get just a shotgun blast directly to the face? Seems like the tetanus you're selling's gonna take months to do the job.

But yes, truly, this bears further investigation. SmartShanghai's gonna send an intern down to GET THE SCOOP.



Ugh. Beer.



Doesn't this guy look like one of those dudes who gets drunk, plows his Lamborghini Countach into crowds of migrant laborers, and then just sues the ever loving shit out of the surviving family members for damage to his car?



What the-





Pretty confident store I guess. Gotta say this "Kate Moss and Some Pizza Sllces" jacket was the hit of the day though. Evidently, "Kate Moss and Some Pizza Slices" is a real thing in the west. Guess I'm out of the loop. Welp, looks like this one fell off the truck and gained a typo on the way down.



Some lewdness...



Children's wear for fascists...



"You know the hardest thing about owning a shag carpet?

*beat*

Gettin' all the DAMN LUBE out of it! Hah!"



You can't even tell it's a piece, right?



So yeah.



Qipu Lu.



Your one-stop shop for quality winter wear.



For 2015.



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