Uniqlo Kids Clothes Being Damaged by Gen Z Consumers Chasing BM Style
Recently the phrase “Adults trying on Uniqlo kids clothes” has been a trending topic on Weibo with over 670 million views. While it is not entirely unusual for women to buy girls clothing, particularly if they are petite, this situation is different. Over the past year, with the popularity of BM style, more and more young women, mostly GenZ consumers, are heading into the children’s section to find tight-fitting tops that fit the trend’s style. Uniqlo happens to be one of their favorites to seek out cute shirts with sailor moon and other characters.
But why is this a problem? A sale is a sale right?
Correct, Uniqlo has no issue with adults purchasing childrens clothes, the problem is adults trying on children’s clothes. It turns out that when many women try on children’s clothes, they have been popping the seams, stretching them out, and getting makeup on the collar. And then not buying them. Leaving Uniqlo with a pile of unsellable clothing.
While some netizens have said that Uniqlo stores are now stopping adults from trying on children’s clothing, according to an interview between a Uniqlo employee and the Global Times, that’s not true, “We’ve heard this news, but we do not stop people from trying on children’s clothing at our store, and will give them a face mask when they try clothing on to prevent unwanted stains.”
What is BM Style and why do they want children’s clothing?
Over the past year “BM style” or “BM girl” (BM风/BM女孩) are some of the trendiest words in China’s fashion industry. BM refers to Italian fast fashion apparel brand Brandy Melville. Its style is very recognizable. The brand only produces apparel for size 0 girls. Its clothing is very 90s style, short and very tight, a lot of crop tops (maybe BM could also stand for bare midriff haha)
Unless you are super skinny, you won’t be able to fit in BM clothing. This has created a lot of controversy around the style as many people say it promotes a very unhealthy body image.
The style became popular after many international and Chinese celebrities and influencers were seen wearing it, such as Kendall Jenner, Kaia Gerber, Hailey Bieber, Nana Ouyang (欧阳娜娜), Song Zuer (宋祖儿) and members of Blackpink.
Xiaohongshu is also trying to help stop this purchasing behavior
As Chinese women’s favorite social media platform to learn about fashion and beauty trends, there are over 140,000 posts on Xiaohongshu about BM style, from tips on how to put together a BM style outfit to where to buy BM style clothing. So of course, there over 5,000 posts all about creating BM outfits with Uniqlo clothing.
To help Uniqlo stop women from trying on kids clothing, now when you search the term “Uniqlo kids clothing” (优衣库童装) on Xiaohongshu, there is a banner at the top of the page to tell people to be respectful and choose the right size clothing when trying out products at Uniqlo. Xiaohongshu has also created a post pinned at the top of the search results page saying similar things. Other users have also created posts urging people to stop trying on and damaging kids’ clothing.
