Towards the end of February, GQ China and Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app teamed up again for a new trend announcement – the Mint Mambo. This marks the second time the fashion magazine and the platform have partnered together for a trend forecast, after the viral success of Maillard Style last autumn, also curated by GQ and Douyin.
As the name suggests, the Mint Mambo style is mostly a combination of a springy green palette and earth tones, and features a mix and match of Y2K-style casual wear and outdoorsy items. Mambo symbolises freedom and liveliness for this trend, as Mint Mambo takes inspiration from nature. GQ invited actresses Chai Biyun and Zhao Yuanyuan, as well as Douyin influencers for a rural and outdoorsy photoshoot. Douyin co-created a short video to promote the Mint Mambo trend with Chai and lifestyle magazine Sanlian Lifeweek.
After Dopamine Dressing seemingly popped out of nowhere last summer, many tried to predict and leverage the power of seasonal fashion trends. Both Maillard Style and Mint Mambo incorporated solar terms in their concept as they mark the beginning of autumn and spring respectively. Mint Mambo also proposes the “deurbanisation” of young minds as office workers take to the outdoors or the countryside to decompress from daily routines, not to mention spring is the season for hiking and trips.
On Douyin, there are thousands of videos about the trend and some of them have reached over 400,000 likes. On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, the topic “Mint Mambo” only has 2.45 million views at the time of writing. However, Maillard style did not sweep the internet until September, while the announcement by GQ and Douyin was made in mid-August, so it would be worth waiting to see how the trend plays out. Whether the Maillard success can be replicated will show if GQ and Douyin have indeed become the fashion trendsetters of Chinese social media.
