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Chinatown Pretty, photographer Andria Lo and writer Valerie Luu document the vibrant street style of seniors in Chinatowns across North America.
The photos burst with color and swag. But the heart of the project goes beyond the sartorial: The clothes serve as a gateway to their life histories, Luu says. We interview them about what they did before retirement as well as their immigration journeys, which are often rife with taxing stories of work, war and loss.
And now add to that, a global pandemic.
Andria Lo
When I first interviewed photographer Andria Lo and writer Valerie Luu, founders of the blog Chinatown Pretty, in 2018, their Instagram account had 11,000 followers and they were four years into their mission of documenting the outfits worn by the elderly denizens of Chinatowns across North America.
Lo and Luu, who are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, founded the blog in 2014 to “celebrate the street style of seniors living (and grocery shopping) in Chinatown”.
They started shooting in the buzzing Chinatown district of San Francisco, but eventually expanded their repertoire to include stylish seniors in five other Chinatowns across North America, in New York, Oakland in California, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Vancouver in Canada.