Remove masks, celebrate freedom: fashion grannies return to Beijing street "catwalk"

Four famous grandmothers and amateur models took off their masks during a saunter down the streets of Beijing yestreday to demonstrate life returning to normal as the COVID-19 pandemic eases.

Glamma Beijing, a group of four women who met during a modeling training course after retiring 20 years ago, became an Internet sensation in China last year.

A 15-second video of them walking in Sanlitun, one of Beijing’s busiest shopping districts, wearing traditional qipao dresses and over-sized dangling fringe earrings, was viewed more than 50 million times in a day.

Since then, Lin Wei, Wang Xinghuo, Sun Yang and Wang Nianwen, all over 60, have enjoyed dressing up and posting videos on short-video platform Douyin for likes.

“Your life is grey if you are always afraid of ageing and death,” said Lin Wei, 64.

“You are old, you have wrinkles, you don’t have too much energy, or your figure becomes baggy. But this is something you can’t go against, so you need to face it with positivity.”

Stuck indoors during the pandemic, they decided to create videos about their lifestyle. They now have more than a million followers on Douyin.