新中式xīn zhōng shì

中式 means “Chinese style”, and 新 means “new”. A 新中式 jacket might have a stand-up collar and knotted cloth buttons, called 盘扣, but a modern cut and a fabric you can wear to the office.

It is not a costume. Full traditional dress has its own name, 汉服. 新中式 is the everyday version, and it has no fixed definition: shops use it for anything with a Chinese touch.

It is an everyday word now. You see it in shop names, product titles and outfit posts, and in jokes that put it in front of something unexpected. One you will see often is 新中式养生, “new Chinese wellness”: young people with herbal teas, sweet soups and health snacks.

新中式 clothing took off in 2023. On Xiaohongshu, notes about it grew by more than 390% that year, and Douyin videos under the topic 新中式穿搭, “new Chinese style outfits”, passed 11 billion views, according to an April 2024 article in Jiemian.

Sales followed. The same article reports that 马面裙, a pleated “horse-face skirt”, sold nearly 700 million yuan online from one county in Shandong in the first two months of 2024. That Spring Festival, young people wore the style at the West Lake in Hangzhou and the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Then the label spread past clothes. An April 2024 piece on CBNData has the subtitle 万物皆可新中式, “anything can be new Chinese style”, and lists noodle shops, burgers, tea drinks and home design.