时尚回归 - 裹小脚

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City scope: the patois of tiny feet （ZT）

Yu Chi-sin in Paris
Apr 01, 2012

Rue Poisson d'Avril is a short, unassuming street in the up-market Sixth Arrondissement of Paris. Its entrances are quintessentially French, with a tabac at the north end and a boulangerie at the south, but in its middle stretch, an outpost of imperial China is flourishing.
No13 is the headquarters of Societe Nouvelle de Pieds Bandes (SNPB; "New Society of Foot Binders"), a club set up in 2005 by Guangzhou-born Isa Lai and her British boyfriend, Cliff Clough, the son of a Yorkshire miner. They were enchanted by the ancient tradition, in which feet are bound tight to keep them small and dainty. It was a practice that, it is estimated, was endured by one billion Chinese women between the 10th century and the mid-20th.

"We wanted to share the joy of foot binding with a new audience," says Lai, who has lived in the French capital for 17 years and has an unfortunate medical condition that precludes her from binding her own feet. "It's very painful, for sure, but, no pain, no gain.
"The practice isn't very popular with the Chinese community here, because of the bad historical connotations, but the Europeans love it. They come here from as far afield as the Baltic and the Straits of Gibraltar," says Lai, adding that the SNPB has a current membership of about 600.
From its inception, the SNBP has been funded by a wealthy Hongkonger who prefers to keep his identity unknown.
"Foot binding is still a sore point in that part of the world," says Lai. "He prefers to keep his involvement under wraps, but I believe he has a purpose-built basement in which he binds the feet of fans."
A few Hongkongers have passed through the doors of No13 Rue Poisson d'Avril, though, and two young women from the city are currently in residence.
"They brought with them some pretty whacky ideas," says Lai. "Like Hello Kitty foot bindings. As a result we're getting a little more daring with what we put on feet."
Interestingly, the majority of this new breed of footbound folk are men. "I'd say 65 per cent of our members are male - and very macho," says Clough. "They are attracted, I think, by the pain; the endurance is seen as masculine."
Clough says he tried to export the pastime to his native Britain, but that was ultimately a failure. "We had a string of binding clubs across northern England and in the 2010 series of Britain's Got Talent we had not one, but two groups of binders taking part: boy band Strapping Young Lads and my own mixed-sex, mixed-race tap-dancing act, Happy Feet."
Neither did very well and the clubs soon closed. Clough tried to bring his "strap-dancing" idea to Paris, but it didn't catch on. "We came at it from a fun angle, which was unsustainable," says Clough, "whereas in France they look at foot binding as a haute-couture-type thing."
At the recent Paris Fashion Week, label Qing Dynasty, run by one of the few local Chinese members of the SNPB, Candice Chu, showed a beautiful collection of bindings in silk with lace trims.
"I do miss the rivalry," says Clough, ruing the closure of his British offshoot. "We used to wind the French lot up all the time."
"Once they sent us a letter challenging us to a `bind-off'," says Lai. "I was outraged at first, but

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