Grandmother Is Model for Chinese : Fashion: Beijing’s debut into world fashion as a major textile exporter is bringing with it a growing sense of style for Chinese women.

Xu Xuejing looks much like other plump Chinese grandmothers in gray cotton slacks and button-up sleeveless blouse, her steel-gray hair pulled severely back in a knot at the nape of her neck.

And that’s just the idea for China’s oldest fashion model.

Due to convention and lack of choice, older Chinese women tend to favor almost identical outfits--white tunics or blouses, black or gray baggy pants, earrings and severe haircuts or buns. They are often elegant in their simplicity but rarely fashionable.

But Beijing’s debut into world fashion as a major textile exporter, however, has brought a growing sense of style for Chinese women.

Designer Lu Shiying established the Beijing Fashion Model Team for Middle-aged and Elderly People in 1987 after noticing during a visit to Japan that older Japanese women continued to care about fashion long past 40.

“Older people here tend to wear black, white, gray and blue. We look like old feudal grandmothers,” said Xu, 73. “It’s not that we don’t love beauty, but we just don’t dare to make ourselves beautiful.”

Xu, the daughter of a wealthy Shanghai industrialist, has survived world war, civil war and revolution. During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, she and her husband, who comes from a similar family background, were branded enemies of society.

Through it all, she retained the refinement of her upbringing--an asset that helped make her a fashion model at 70, which she decided to try after a daughter saw an ad in a newspaper, she said.

After she retired from teaching music at 55, Xu said, “I would just lay on the bed day after day. And I suffered so many illnesses that my husband prepared my grave and was just waiting for me to die.”

Getting out and making new friends has given her a new lease on life, she said.

“These experiences have given me an emotional backbone,” Xu said. “I haven’t been really sick for three years.”

A pioneer for her age group, Xu said her modeling skills are self-taught. “I can’t move like a young person, so I had to figure out for myself how to walk to suit my image and appearance.”

And her husband, for the first time, has learned to cook for her.

She models at least once a week, often for high-level groups, including the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature. Styles are designed for her age group. Below-knee, A-line coats and dresses with high collars feature heavily in Lu Shiying’s designs.

Sharing the catwalk with young models less than half her age can be a real trial.

“But, what do you know, we older models get the most applause,” she said. “People tell us that our beauty is different. We represent China’s elderly.”

“My legs and eyes are bad,” she said. “I’m old and ugly. But my heart is young.”