Chang Wan-ji, 83, and his wife Hsu Sho-er, 84, have racked up nearly 600,000 followers
Taichung, Taiwan:
Taiwan’s hottest couple these days aren’t young celebrities or teen influencers – they’re an octogenarian duo who run a mom-and-pop laundry service and have become an online sensation online. modeling abandoned clothes.
Chang Wan-ji, 83, and his wife Hsu Sho-er, 84, racked up nearly 600,000 Instagram followers in the past month as their attitude-filled fashion portraits went viral.
They have even been featured in the Taiwanese edition of Vogue and Marie Claire.
The couple have run a laundry for decades in a small town near the central city of Taichung.
Over the years, customers either forgot or failed to collect reams of clothes the couple never felt able to throw away.
Grandson Reef Chang, 31, came up with the idea of using the clothes to ease the couple’s boredom.
“My grandfather and my grandmother looked at the streets with a puzzled air because business was not good,” he told AFP. “I wanted to find something new that they might like to do.”
The pair looked natural on camera.
“Modeling these clothes makes me feel 30 years younger,” Chang said when AFP visited the store earlier this week.
“A lot of people tell me ‘You are famous now and you look younger’.”
Hsu felt it too.
“I am old but my heart does not age,” she said. “I like to put on nice clothes and go out for fun.”
– World renown –
It was while modeling other people’s clothes, Hsu remembered that she also had many forgotten outfits in her closet that she has since rediscovered.
“I even found clothes that I bought 30 years ago and I can still wear them. It’s a good surprise, ”she said.
The couple’s Instagram account – @wantshowasyoung – is managed by grandson Reef.
Chang currently only uses the Line messaging app to make free phone calls, but Reef says his grandfather wants to learn how to create the perfect Instagram post.
The account started to go viral overseas and around 400,000 new fans started following it in the past week alone after major international media resumed their success.
Reef said he translates and reads mail from fans pouring in from around the world.
“We are very touched by the messages,” he told AFP. “A lot of people say ‘Wantshowasyoung’ is the first good news they’ve seen in this grim year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and the problems in many countries,” he added.
The couple’s worldwide fame also prompted a few forgetful customers to pick up old clothes, while some local fans began to tour their sleepy town to see the store.
The shop is called “Wan Sho” – a combination of the central character of their Chinese names.
– Reuse clothes –
The couple married six decades ago in an arranged marriage, a practice then common in Taiwan.
Chang said he thought about retiring but decided to stay as long as he could, as the laundry business became less labor-intensive thanks to the machines.
“The elderly should keep moving and stay active or we will age faster … When I am working and busy, I don’t have time to worry,” he said.
Chang says he’s lost count of the number of clothes that haven’t been picked up from his store over the decades, but he believes there are at least 400 items at the moment.
Many more have been donated to charities and poor families over the years.
The couple hope to use their new weight on social media to promote the concept of “green fashion”.
“Instead of following the ‘fast fashion’ and keep buying new clothes, we hope people can see that old and second-hand clothes can be trendy if you arrange and combine them in new ways.” , said Reef Chang.
“It would cause less damage to the earth and the environment.”
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
