Two French Women Are Fangirls of the “Auntie” — So They Made a Magazine Called Fan Girl | 100 People With Ideas

“Chinese aunties are really different.”

If you don't look closely, Fan Girl (《迷妹》) reads like an old magazine pulled out of a stack of yellowed paper. The cover is faded, the paper dull and loose, and the layout either stirs up nostalgia or leaves young readers who have never seen this kind of publication completely baffled.

Yet every element in it is new — including its subject: the “auntie.”

Some time ago, two young French women, Elsa Bouillot and Monique Fei, grew interested in “aunties” — more precisely, middle-aged and older women at or near retirement age.

Monique started learning Chinese at 13 and first came to China at 15, when she visited Beijing and Qingdao. Elsa has lived in Shanghai since 2010. She came to do a master's degree in management, worked at an advertising agency for six years after graduating, and recently quit.

Now Monique does square dancing with the aunties every week, and treats it as exercise. “And it's free — the gym is expensive. I don't know why you'd go to a gym, you can just go to the park. If you want to relax, do tai chi. If you want exercise, go dancing.” Two years ago, Monique was watching an auntie dance to music on the street when the auntie pulled her in. Mid-dance, the auntie suddenly dropped into a split and the crowd gasped, so Monique did a split too, and everyone cracked up. The scene has stayed with her.

Elsa started snapping photos of aunties five years ago. She and Monique met through a mutual friend, and afterward discovered they both loved the way aunties dressed and both found their lives interesting. One day the two met in a park and decided to start this project together — a magazine about “aunties.”

The two French women call themselves fangirls of the “auntie.”

The opening editor's note in Fan Girl reads: “‘Fan Girl’ deliberately combines two ‘stale’ concepts — feminism and celebrity fan magazines — and presents them through traditional magazine elements: columns, tutorials, games, posters, speech bubbles, candid photos and more. We are not trying to lay out the key words for understanding this group, but we do want to spotlight what is remarkable about aunties in a humorous, sly way, because they deserve more attention.”

On the magazine's pink cover, a Chinese auntie with curlers in her hair sits by the roadside trimming vegetables in a red basin on her lap. Elsa noticed her while walking down the street. She wanted to photograph her but felt shy about it; when she finally turned the lens on her, the auntie looked up right at her. That gave Elsa what she calls “a moment that will never happen again.” “It was a really great moment,” she said, which is why she chose it for the cover.

On July 5, to celebrate the first issue, Fan Girl threw a party in a residential compound on Yuyuan Road, along with an exhibition of Elsa Bouillot's and Monique Fei's work. Visitors came in a steady trickle on opening day — not many, and even fewer of them Chinese.

The exhibition space was small, split between latex garments and photographs hung on clothes racks; a few photo collections were on the walls, and in a corner on the floor sat the sleeve covers and shoes Monique had sewn.

The magazine's layout, language and images all carry the flavor of the 1980s and ’90s. Inside are old-style hair-dye shampoo ads, an advertisement for Shanghai Sewing Machine Factory No. 4, fashion breakdowns like “The Newest Styles at Xinxin Hair Salon” and “Mona Shirts Are on Every Street,” plus a maze, a quiz and a cut-out “dress the auntie” paper-doll template.

The inspiration really does come from old magazines — seven of the images were copied straight out of them. Monique found the old magazines at a secondhand market near where she lives. Both of them love the vintage feel of these publications.

The seven old-magazine images come from a 1988 issue of Life Creation (《生活创造》), a 1982 issue of Popular Photography (《大众摄影》), a 1984 issue of Beyond the Eight-Hour Day (《八小时以外》), and even a 1991 issue of Contemporary Procurator (《当代检察官》).

On the page titled “A Young Woman's Makeup” (《少女的化妆》), step-by-step diagrams teach you to draw your eyebrows, apply eyeshadow, curl your lashes, line your eyes and put on lipstick — a full face takes 12 steps. Monique says aunties love to look beautiful. In France everyone learns from YouTube videos; she had never seen a look broken down image by image like this. She also loves how rich and complicated the colors are in the old magazines.

Half the magazine's inside pages are fashion spreads shot by Elsa.

In the photos the model wears sleeve covers and shoes Monique made herself, each outfit paired with a different makeup look. The model is Onojia, a friend of theirs.

Onojia is a young man, but they felt “he really has that auntie quality,” and he dances. Onojia studied fashion design at Donghua University and went into dance performance after graduating.

The series shows three kinds of sleeve covers Monique designed, made from latex, silk and knit. Monique says sleeve covers are a very practical thing, and most people make them out of cotton. She chose materials that were beautiful, expensive and fashionable instead. She knew perfectly well that silk is precious and hard to care for, and that knit fabric lets the clothes underneath show through — both of which work against practicality — but she used them anyway.

“I like this kind of conflict and contrast,” Monique said. She thinks latex is an extremely sexy material.

In private, Monique likes making things out of latex too. She buys silk scarves on Qipu Road and paints patterns she likes onto them with liquid latex. One whole row of the exhibition was latex work of hers — clothes, a tablecloth, underwear. One pair of latex underwear had an auntie's face painted on it and the words “Latex Auntie”; it was modeled on an auntie who appears in the magazine. The auntie herself, of course, has no idea she has been painted onto a pair of underwear.

The shoot took place in an old lane at Xinzha Road and Shimen Yi Road in Shanghai. Talking about the old houses, Elsa looked a little sorry. “We found this old house that almost nobody lives in now, just a few aunties left. Those aunties seemed very lonely. We thought the place was interesting — it used to be where the aunties and uncles spent their time. But now they're all gone, and the furniture and posters are still in the house. That's why we chose to shoot here, the auntie feeling is still there. But Shanghai changes too fast, and that makes me sad. Houses like this get abandoned because people want to live in new buildings. In France, protecting old houses matters a lot. If Shanghai were nothing but towers, it would be boring.”

Downstairs from Monique's place there was a little shop run by an auntie; it has closed too, and a new shopping mall is going up. “They shut down all the small shops. With small restaurants and small stores, you can buy all kinds of things. Then one day — in a single day — the shops were gone, they'd sealed up the doors. Before, you'd say ‘hello’ to the auntie every day. Then one day, you have no one to say it to. It makes me sad. I prefer small houses to new towers — they're warm, they're Chinese. You see, we love old things, old people, old stuff. But aunties love modern things.”

Elsa still shoots with her grandfather's Minolta film camera. Film feels real to her. “When you shoot film, you think more. No Photoshop — everything is the way it was. Film itself makes a lot of connections with your subject. You have to wait days to see what you shot. The first time Monique and I looked at this set together, we were so excited.” Elsa pointed to a double-exposed photo in Fan Girl: “This was a good accident — forgetting to wind the film gave the photo more possibilities.” It shows Onojia and an auntie overlapping, a real auntie laid over the illusion of an auntie. “You can read it as the auntie imagining herself young, or as how Onojia, playing an auntie, might look when she is old. It seems like a joining of an image and a real event.”

Before the shoot, Elsa told Onojia this was a set of photos about “auntie spirit.” Onojia put on music of his own and started dancing in the old lane on Shimen Yi Road. Elsa and Monique were so taken by it that they nearly forgot to shoot. Onojia loved the whole process of dancing for the camera; Elsa caught it from the side.

They also shared some stories and thoughts about aunties

1. The sleeve covers an auntie wanted

Monique thinks sleeve covers are a brilliant invention, a genuinely practical design. She made a series of them in silk and wanted aunties to try them on. When she went to Zhongshan Park to get aunties into the sleeve covers she'd made, they found it funny — two foreigners, asking them to put on sleeve covers.

Monique would ask them: we made these sleeve covers, do you want to wear them?

At first the aunties said no, then asked: did you make them yourselves? Then came the review — “You didn't make them well, too plain, too simple, no pattern.” One auntie took a liking to Monique's silk sleeve covers and said that unless they handed the sleeve covers over after the shoot, she wouldn't let them take her picture.

2. She wears beautiful clothes every day

At Zhongshan Park you can see plenty of aunties dancing together. But one auntie is always alone. She comes to dance in beautiful clothes every day, full of patterns and colors. Before she lived in China, Monique had never seen clothes like that — in France people dress more simply, usually in black. They pointed to a photo in Fan Girl of an auntie dancing by herself, in a baseball cap and sunglasses, a top and skirt in two different patterns, white stockings and black lace-up leather shoes. Once she had on the deep-purple silk sleeve covers Monique made, she struck a pose for them.

3. They're a community

“Chinese aunties are really different. We love that they're always like one community — they seem so happy, because every day they meet, dance and travel together. It looks like they don't really need their husbands.”

In France, women that age also see friends every week, but they usually stay home rather than being out on the street. France has no community like this. Chinese aunties put themselves on display in public space, which is very rare in Europe. French parks have benches too, but nobody strikes up a conversation with the stranger sitting on one.

Many old people in France live in nursing homes, and the old and the young don't spend much time together. Monique says, “Old people should live in China.” As she sees it, old people in France cook, watch TV and read at home — solitary, quiet activities. Chinese aunties have all these social activities, and every one of them is full of energy.

4. They play mahjong on the street

Monique often sees uncles and aunties playing mahjong at the roadside — sometimes one auntie and three uncles — with very serious faces.

5. They hang huge underwear out by the street

Elsa and Monique noticed you can always see very large underwear hanging out along the street, and found it remarkable. In France, laundry dries inside the house. In China, everyone can see everyone else's underwear. Someone later told them, “drying clothes outside is barbecuing the dust mites — you can smell the roasted mites.” Now Elsa and Monique dry their laundry outside too.

At the opening party, photos were clipped to lines strung across the courtyard — a copy of the roadside laundry scene. Monique thinks people get more relaxed in China; they don't seem to worry too much about how things look.

6. Aunties think the iPhone is best

Elsa uses her phone when she wants a fast candid shot of an auntie, but most of the time she shoots film. Taking candids on a phone really does feel like a “fangirl” chasing an idol. With film, the aunties can't see the picture on the spot. Elsa would offer to add them on WeChat and send the photos later, but the aunties waved her off: “No need, no need, we have iPhones. iPhone is the best.” The aunties came out of the film era themselves, and they don't find film interesting. Monique says aunties usually like new things, while she and Elsa are hooked on old ones.

7. There are all sorts of rules for “Auntie Flo”

Fan Girl gives a full page to “Auntie Flo” — the Chinese slang for a period, which translates literally as “Big Auntie.” Once, when Elsa showed she was in pain, an auntie at her office promptly made her a cup of brown-sugar water. Afterward she realized Chinese people are very particular about “Auntie Flo.”

They sorted the advice they'd been given into three categories — foot baths, herbal tea and keeping warm (a hot water bottle). Monique says the only method she'd heard of in France was a warm compress on the stomach.

Monique had heard that during your period “you can't eat anything cold, and you can't wash your hair for three days,” which astonished her. Friends in France take medicine for period pain, but she thinks Western medicine is unnatural, and that all these Chinese rules may have something to them.

They looked up the origin of the phrase “Big Auntie” on Baidu Baike and wrote the explanation into the magazine in English, with the three categories of advice shown in pictures below the story, described this way: “To get you through this difficult time, here are some tips for dealing with stomach pain and ways to relax.”

8. The auntie with a little secret

When Monique was at Jiao Tong University, she often went to a small park. Every time she sat on a bench there, she saw the same auntie. She always found the auntie a bit mysterious, sitting there day after day. Then one day two of the auntie's friends turned up, saw Monique knitting on the bench, discovered she spoke Chinese and started talking to her. The aunties showed Monique their Moments feeds, their classmates, photos from trips they'd taken together. Monique couldn't hold back her curiosity and was about to ask why the auntie sat there every day — just then someone ran over to buy cigarettes, and it clicked: “So the auntie looks so relaxed every day, but really she's sniffing out business every single minute. I finally know the auntie's little secret!”

Monique says getting close to an auntie builds up bit by bit — first her outside, then her inside. That cigarette-selling, business-sniffing auntie later offered to teach Monique Shanghainese.

9. Have the aunties seen the magazine?

Basically none of them have. The aunties said, you can take photos, but WeChat is a “no.” Only the three aunties in the “Aunties' Little Life Secrets” section have seen it.

Elsa and Monique asked many people, but most aunties weren't very willing to tell their own stories. “Aunties' Little Life Secrets” recounts, in both Chinese and English, three aunties' accounts of the first time they met their current husbands, and what they've made of twenty or thirty years of marriage. Among the secrets they shared: “A woman should keep working on her outer and inner character, and hold tolerance and love in her heart. She should always keep herself looking pretty. She should have a career and a life she runs herself.” “My husband and I have had our rough patches too. I've complained about having no brand-name bags, no brand-name clothes, no good skincare to look after myself with. But after the complaining, when you settle down and think — when you're complaining you have no shoes, have you noticed there are people in this world with no feet? Why not be someone who's content?” “A little secret? I'll tell you — I think first love is the most beautiful memory of all.”

Monique says, “We didn't pick special aunties. We picked the aunties we like.”

While they were making the magazine, they assumed only foreigners would like it. Then they found Chinese people liked it too — mostly young ones. Young Chinese readers would say, “Oh, I have to show my mom, she'll love this.” So, “it suits young and old alike,” Monique said, laughing.

The mothers of Monique's Chinese friends really do like Fan Girl. Monique says, “Because we're foreigners, if we go and talk about someone else's culture, people wonder why we're the ones talking about their culture. But through the fangirl view, aunties can accept it. Fangirl means we really like them — not laughing at them, not being critical, not scrutinizing them, not saying, ‘oh look, they're like this.’ We genuinely like them.”

10. Do you each have an auntie you know best?

Elsa: There's an auntie on Wuding Xi Road. When she was small, all three floors of that building belonged to her family; now only the top floor is hers. She has told Elsa a lot of stories and even given her candles. The auntie has shared plenty about herself — her youth, her family, the house, the neighbors. It means a lot.

Monique: “My boyfriend's mother. She's helped me a lot, helped Fan Girl a lot. She lives in the suburbs, in the same compound as many other aunties. Every morning she gets up at 5 a.m. to practice sword dancing. Usually it's men who like sword dancing, so I think she's very special, very independent. She decides how her own life goes. She doesn't know it herself, but I think she's independent. I think Chinese aunties are all independent. They can do without their sons and their husbands — they're independent on their own.” The first husband of Monique's boyfriend's mother didn't want the child because it was a daughter, so she left him and moved into central Shanghai. “That's very unusual, not many people would do it. Raising a child alone in Shanghai was hard. Then she found my boyfriend's father, and had my boyfriend. I think she's amazing. Divorce is common now, but back then it wasn't easy at all.”

11. How do you two see fashion?

Monique is applying to schools in the UK, in textile design.

“I like that fashion is freer in China. When people go out, they dress really crazy. In France, people love to criticize. In China, nobody minds what anyone else does — in a good way. It's freer here, you can wear anything, very short shorts, a heavy hoodie, hair in two colors.”

For Monique, that freedom is part of what fashion is. “Being able to express yourself is fashion. That's why I think aunties are so fashionable, because they wear everything they like completely naturally. And it's practical at the same time — aunties always show their confidence.”

Elsa expresses herself through the lens instead. “For me, photography is shooting moments that will never happen again. I use one moment to express how I feel right then. I love color, I love how things and spaces work on each other, and how people relate to space, to objects, to their surroundings. You can record color and story with visual art. You can put what you run into — aunties, for instance — into something visual. I think it's great that we made this magazine together. On my own I couldn't have done it this well.”

Elsa and Monique plan another issue of Fan Girl, though it may be about uncles. “We really were fangirls of aunties, not of uncles. But when we look at aunties, we find there's always an uncle behind them. Like the aunties taking photos in front of the flowers at Jing'an Temple — they'll say ‘come here a second,’ and an uncle runs over to take the picture. We've noticed that an auntie without an uncle is different. Aunties need uncles.”

The first printing of 80 copies of the debut issue of Fan Girl has sold out, and another 80 are being printed.

After the interview, Monique said: “I think most young people carry fairly heavy Western thinking, but aunties don't.”

Cover image: reproduced from Fan Girl