Taiwan Night Market Fashion 1

In addition to their reputation for novelty foods, night markets in Taiwan also offer an almost endless variety of cheap goods, particularly clothing and accessories. Some of the fast, low-cost garments found at Taiwanese night markets are amusing, quirky, provocative, bizarre, or even incoherent, though some of it is also quite clever. My understanding is that many of the more unusual products originates in China, where massive factories churn out garments emblazoned with English text and pop culture references without regard for semantic meaning. This is almost certainly the result of copying passages from print or online media, using machine translation, or sheer laziness, but it might also be for aesthetic effect. Transcription errors are common, particularly when popular designs are copied by competing factories. Observed on the scale of years there is something almost evolutionary at work in night market fashion—styles mutate and are subject to a kind of natural selection. To celebrate the absurdity of this curious cultural phenomena I have assembled about 40 photos from my many visits to the night markets of Taiwan. Enjoy!

Date Captured May 31st, 2016 at 15:19 UTCCamera SM-G9208Aperture ƒ / 1.9Shutter Speed 1/25 secFocal Length 4.3 mmISO 160Exposure Value 6.5 EVOriginal Size 1200 × 960

Date Captured May 29th, 2016 at 15:13 UTCCamera SM-G9208Aperture ƒ / 1.9Shutter Speed 1/60 secFocal Length 4.3 mmISO 125Exposure Value 7.8 EVOriginal Size 1200 × 960

Date Captured May 30th, 2016 at 13:34 UTCCamera SM-G9208Aperture ƒ / 1.9Shutter Speed 1/60 secFocal Length 4.3 mmISO 125Exposure Value 7.8 EVOriginal Size 900 × 900

Date Captured June 9th, 2016 at 14:42 UTCCamera SM-G9208Aperture ƒ / 1.9Shutter Speed 1/60 secFocal Length 4.3 mmISO 64Exposure Value 7.8 EVOriginal Size 1200 × 960

Date Captured April 19th, 2016 at 14:18 UTCCamera SM-G9208Aperture ƒ / 1.9Shutter Speed 1/35 secFocal Length 4.3 mmISO 125Exposure Value 7.0 EVOriginal Size 1200 × 960

Date Captured June 6th, 2015 at 15:38 UTCCamera NIKON D3100Lens AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IIAperture ƒ / 4Shutter Speed 1/60 secFocal Length 22.0 mmISO 800Exposure Value 9.9 EVOriginal Size 1200 × 800

Date Captured May 6th, 2015 at 16:56 UTCCamera NIKON D3100Lens AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IIAperture ƒ / 3.5Shutter Speed 1/30 secFocal Length 20.0 mmISO 1000Exposure Value 8.5 EVOriginal Size 1200 × 800

Date Captured June 24th, 2016 at 10:38 UTCCamera SM-G9208Aperture ƒ / 1.9Shutter Speed 1/25 secFocal Length 4.3 mmISO 200Exposure Value 6.5 EVOriginal Size 900 × 900

Date Captured March 13th, 2016 at 08:48 UTCCamera SM-G9208Aperture ƒ / 1.9Shutter Speed 1/25 secFocal Length 4.3 mmISO 125Exposure Value 6.5 EVOriginal Size 900 × 600

Date Captured June 24th, 2016 at 11:01 UTCCamera SM-G9208Aperture ƒ / 1.9Shutter Speed 1/60 secFocal Length 4.3 mmISO 64Exposure Value 7.8 EVOriginal Size 900 × 900

Most of these photos were captured at the Tonghua (通化), Raohe (饒河), and Lehua (樂華) night markets in the Taipei area and the Fengjia (逢甲) and Yizhong (一中) night markets in Taichung. If you’re keen to see more unusual stuff from Taiwan check out my posts about road safety dummies and scooter stickers.