People Can Have a Clean-cut passion for fashion.

This is a guest post; http://www.chinadaily.com.cn

A janitor's zeal for style trends has made her an online icon. Han Bingbin reports.
Rong Deli couldn't help but interrupt the fashion magazine's photo shoot to interject her opinion that the models' color schemes clashed.
This startled the photographer, who wondered just who this impeccably dressed and remarkably vocal woman was. He was even more surprised when Rong identified herself: "I'm the cleaning lady."
He immediately trained his lens on her and later posted the photos on his micro blog. They were reposted nearly 5,400 times within a week. This is how the "Fashion Cleaner Sister De" became an online style icon.
Media rushed to snap shots of Rong at work. A particularly well-known shot is of her wiping off a table while clad in a long white Chiffon dress.

Rong Deli has worked as a cleaner at a fashion magazine for seven years and has become an unlikely media icon. Photos by Zou Hong / China Daily

Suspicion soon arose that Rong contrived the events leading up to her celebrity as a publicity stunt to land a better job.
She shrugs off the criticism.
"I like this work," the 48-year-old says.
"I'm retiring in a year, anyway. If I look down on the job of a cleaner, wouldn't that mean I despise myself?"
She pauses, busts into laughter and asks, "Is it foolish for me to think so?"
Rong started working as a janitor at the magazine seven years ago, after 22 years as a bookkeeper at a State-run textile mill - a stint that ended when the factory was privatized and relocated to the suburbs.
While many of the magazine's other cleaners have quit over the years, Rong says she stayed because she enjoys working alongside optimistic young people and remains passionate about fashion.
Rong had hoped to become a doctor after a childhood pervaded by illness, but her science scores were too low. She studied Japanese after getting married but lost patience with it.
However, her adoration of fashion has persisted through the decades. She kept tabs on foreign trends via Hollywood and Japanese films as a young woman and continues to monitor the annual Paris and Milan fashion weeks on TV.
Rong can recite the history of fashion magazines' evolution since the 1970s and is glued to the Chinese fashion shows proliferating on TV.
She recalls incorporating fashion trends into the clothing she made for herself in the 1980s. Because she didn't know how to take measurements, she dissected an old dress and replicated its proportions.
She is happy to see the trends come full circle, so she can dig a jumpsuit she sewed decades ago out of the back of her closet.
After her seamstress period, she regularly perused shopping malls and back street boutiques to take the temperature of what was hot in Chinese fashion.

She's now learning computer skills to take her searches online.
"I don't like using computers, but clothes are cheaper online," she says, showing a handbag she insists is genuine leather that she bought for 200 yuan ($32) on the Web.
Rong never wears the same outfit in summer and never twice in the same week during winter.
The cleaner refuses to reveal how much she spends on clothes but says her income determines the price.
"If you gave me a Chanel outfit, I wouldn't even know how to wear it," she says.
"I dress to be happy - not to show off. I appreciate my husband giving me so much leeway. We're not rich, but we are happy."
Rong hopes others can learn from her philosophy of not comparing oneself to others.
"There's a reason some people earn more than you," she says.
"Either you haven't worked as hard or seized as many opportunities. If you don't grab every chance that presents itself, you have to live with an open attitude. And you must have a dream."
Her goal is to open a clothing shop selling her designs.
"It's just a dream. But who doesn't have a dream? I can realize my vision if I win 5 million yuan in the lottery - actually, 1 million is enough," she says, laughing.
"But having a good dream means living a good life. It doesn't matter if it comes true."