She's referring, of course, to the violent upheaval of a 3,000-year-old dynastic system, civil war, Japanese aggression, and Communist rule that characterized much of China's past century."Sometimes a Westerner will say to channel the thirties or forties during a photo shoot," says New York-based model Xiao Wen Ju. "I want to tell them what China was up to then…it would terrify them!" She's referring, of course, to the violent upheaval of a 3,000-year-old dynastic system, civil war, Japanese aggression, and Communist rule that characterized much of China's past century.

Modeling—and fashion at large—are relatively new phenomena in modern China. It wasn't even until 1979 that the country saw its first-ever fashion show when Pierre Cardin presented twelve French models to a bureaucratic, Mao-suit-clad crowd at Beijing's Cultural Palace of Minorities. Today, roughly thirty-five years later, the greater China region has grown to become the world's second-largest luxury goods market and boasts a ferocious appetite that's largely dictating the terms of a $300 billion industry.

In the last decade, however, one contingent of girls—excuse me, women—has inadvertently become de facto cultural ambassadresses who are softly wielding their influence in meaningful ways. They are the industry's leading Chinese models, including Du Juan, Liu Wen, Xiao Wen Ju, Xi Mengyao (or Ming Xi), Sui He, Wang Xiao, Fei Fei Sun, and Shu Pei Qin, among others, and they are introducing new notions of beauty back home in the East while simultaneously breaking racial stereotypes in the West.

It was the trailblazing Shanghai beauty Du Juan who paved the way. Following her big break—being featured on Vogue China and Paris Vogue covers in the fall of 2005—she participated in the four big fashion weeks of New York, London, Milan, and Paris. "I remember being the only Asian model at Chanel's Spring 2006 Couture show," she recounts. "So many backstage photographers would ask me if I was from Japan or Korea. When I would tell them that I was from China, I felt so proud."
POST: 2024-05-21