Funky fashion to dine for

Models strutting down a makeshift runway in clothing adorned with fruits and vegetables is an unusual sight, one attendees of a sports event in Hubei province were certainly not expecting.

Around 100 models recently strode into a packed stadium wearing dresses embellished with mushrooms, rice, oranges, strawberries, peppers, corn, cabbage and even garlic.

The mastermind behind the unusual show is Suizhou city's Hu Mengfan, 28, whose efforts went viral online when she started turning farm produce into haute couture garments. She has nearly 500,000 online followers and a total video view count exceeding 700 million.

An iron stick yam becomes a scepter, a green pepper becomes a fan, a coconut becomes a handbag and corn serves as a golden crown.

Back in 2019, she returned to Heping village when her parents' mushroom business faced difficulties. "Our home-grown mushrooms were piling up unsold, and my father would just squat silently in the mushroom shed all day. I quit my teaching job and came back home to help sell them," she said.

During the daytime she learned about the ins and outs of agriculture, and at night she learned about vlogging, hoping to find a way out of the family's dilemma.

Hu initially posted videos showing the process of growing and harvesting mushrooms, but they hardly gained any traction online.

One day, she rode a tricycle to work. On the way, she playfully pulled off a stunt she had loved doing since childhood: riding with one hand while balancing the tricycle on just two wheels.

She filmed the whole thing and posted the video online. Unexpectedly, it blew up immediately, racking up millions of views and over 100,000 likes.

"I realized that people don't dislike farm produce itself; they're just tired of seeing the same old repetitive promotional content," she said.

Then she tried to showcase agricultural products while riding a tricycle, and the idea became wearing agricultural products as clothing and accessories while on a tricycle.

Clad in various fashion ensembles, Hu would ride a tricycle with one hand and gaze coolly into the camera. This contrast amazed a lot of netizens.

Some wondered how she managed to lift one wheel of the tricycle off the ground without tipping over. Some called her "a fairy of vegetables descended to the mortal world". Others commented that walking down the street in the outfits she designed would definitely turn heads.

Hu, who began with no formal training in fashion design, works with her partners to make every piece of clothing, starting from design concepts to assembly. In the early days, they used fresh farm produce to create outfits. With a team of five people, a single item of clothing can take about a week to make.

"I just observe widely, learn constantly, draw on others' experience, and let my imagination run wild. The natural hues, textures and shapes of agricultural products themselves serve as design vocabulary," Hu said.

Mushrooming concept

The mushroom outfit is one of her earliest and favorite creations; she even penned a brief note highlighting her chosen muse.

"Brown blossoms pushing their way out of mushroom logs. Quietly they grow, deep within the sheds, in utter silence. For decades, mushroom farmers bear calloused palms yet hold sparks of hope in their eyes. From mountain wilderness to dining tables, from Suizhou to faraway lands, they have traveled thousands of miles. Today, carrying the pride of an entire city, they step into the spotlight," it said.

On the evening of July 18, ahead of a Hubei City Soccer League match between Suizhou and Jingmen, elderly rural women became fashionable models to showcase Hu's edible creations.

"I wanted to convey that the charm of rural areas is not merely about the agricultural products, but also the people who grow them. Those women have bent their backs working the land their entire lives, yet on that day, they stood beneath the spotlight. They are the most beautiful scenery of the countryside," Hu said.

So as not to waste food, most creations were dismantled after the show for human consumption or livestock feed.

Hu has made all manner of stylized garments from scratch. Processing the raw materials alone can sometimes take two or three days.

"Take the outfit themed on cabbage, for example," Hu said.

"We cut out more than 2,000 leaves, followed by spray dyeing and shaping."

Since most of the farm produce used in the costumes is perishable, photography has to proceed immediately. Sometimes hundreds of takes are needed to get a single clip right.

Through continuous experimentation, the team has created nearly 200 sets of costumes, sourcing distinctive agricultural products from Suizhou and other provinces across China. Nowadays, most of the costumes are made from eco-friendly materials.

During filming for her online videos, Hu has to ride a tricycle while wearing outfits weighing dozens of kilograms. Bumps, knocks and falls are an everyday occurrence for her.

The videos have helped rural development. Now her family's mushroom base operates on a new business model.

A cooperative provides mushroom spawn and technical guidance, farmers handle the cultivation themselves, and the base carries out unified purchasing and recycling.

After the videos went viral, orders poured in from all across the country.

To date, the project has benefited more than 300 farming households, with each household seeing an annual income increase of over 30,000 yuan ($4,430).

Hu's family mushroom farm venue also provides a hands-on vegetable picking experience and receives around 20,000 visits per year.

She also helps train residents in e-commerce and how to make short videos.

In the future, she wants to bring the special fashion show to the world, choosing one agricultural product in each city, seeing how it is grown and learning about the people behind it, to design a unique garment. "I want agricultural goods to be more than just food on the dining table," she said. "I want to create distinctive calling cards for rural areas."

Contact the writers at chenmeiling@chinadaily.com.cn