+0086 Beijing Cool

A sort of Fruits of China's best dressed kids, this volume defines the new Chinese cool through the eyes of its hippest generation, in 300 pages of photos and illustrations from the ultracool Beijing-based magazine +0086. The first generation to enjoy the economic accelerations--the foremost of the so-called "Tiger Economies"--of the past ten years, China's youth culture is media-savvy and globalized, their eyes beaming in the glow of perhaps becoming the next Internet It Girl or Cory Kennedy. These kids may watch Skins and Gossip Girl, but, as the book demonstrates, they aren't blindly miming some bland digest of global pop culture, rather, they are developing a new style that is specific to contemporary China, which is taking root by itself. This publication marks the beginning of a documentary work in progress, as +0086 continues to report on the situation from the streets of Beijing. Though this book can't tell the future, it does predict that Chinese youth will just keep getting cooler.