China steps out on to fashion's front pages

Sui He has starred on catwalks and in magazines, and is a leader in the fashion industry's switch to Asian models. Photo / Supplied

As a young girl growing up in Wenzhou, southern China's "capital of capitalism", Sui He had a dream - to become a self-made businesswoman.

At 21, she is approaching the top, living in New York and flying around the world.

But instead of becoming a hard-nosed entrepreneur, she is rising through the ranks of an equally cut-throat industry - as one of a new breed of Chinese models on the catwalks of London, Milan and New York.

"Editorial look and natural poise all the way," gushed one fashion blogger.

"A delicate air that shifts to hard edge in a blink," raved another.

Designers are equally enthusiastic: Sui He became the first Asian model to open for Ralph Lauren, the high priest of Wasp style, at New York fashion week.

But He points out that she is not alone.

"They had six Chinese models in the show - it was just by accident that I was the one who opened it," she said.

December's US Vogue featured eight east Asian models - Chinese, Korean and Japanese - in an "Asia Major" shoot.

Liu Wen was the first Asian model to appear in a Victoria's Secret show and became Estee Lauder's first Asian "spokesmodel" last year; Maybelline has hired another Chinese model, Shu Pei. Feifei Sun, Emma Pei and Ming Xi have all walked for top designers.

Lest the boys feel left out, Louis Vuitton recently hired Taiwanese-Canadian Godfrey Gao for a moody advertising campaign.

"In the past couple of seasons, you have seen a sudden increase," said Angelica Cheung, editor of Vogue China.

"Even in the last two or three years, it was pretty much about Du Juan; she was the only one going big. Now they have all appeared."

He confesses that when she was growing up she thought of models as "flower vases" - a Chinese expression indicating beauty but emptiness.

Yet these days others are making bold claims for the significance of these new faces.

The US Vogue spread announced that the models were "redefining traditional concepts of beauty" - traditional, that is, in the West.

Liu has declared of her compatriots: "We are making history every day."

A handful of models of Asian origin, such as Tina Chow, have been celebrated in the West before.

More recently, Du became the first Asian model on the cover of French Vogue and has walked for Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent.

Yet New York magazine described He's Ralph Lauren appearance as "the most surprising casting of the season", saying more about the persistent whiteness of the fashion industry than about its new-found diversity.

Cheung is proud to say that Vogue China played a part in the rise of Chinese models by flying in big-name international photographers for fashion spreads.

"We pretty much launched Du Juan's career by having Patrick Demarchelier shoot her," she said.

But, she concedes, there is another reason Chinese models are in fashion - money.

"Because of the economic problems elsewhere, China became the only shining spot. As a consumer market, it has grown and grown," she said.

International management consultancy Bain & Co reported recently that China would this year become the world's second largest luxury-goods market, with 25 per cent growth taking it to US$17 billion ($21.5 billion) worth of sales.

McKinsey predicts that by 2015, the China market will be worth US$27 billion.

Louis Vuitton's decision to hire Godfrey Gao was not only testament to his razor-like cheekbones, but to the increasing clout of Chinese luxury consumers, more than half of whom are male.

Similarly, Estee Lauder's decision to hire Liu Wen is less surprising when China's multi-billion-dollar skincare and cosmetics industry is taken into consideration.

This gives some encouragement to those who hope east Asian models will continue to be used, despite the industry's history of showing a fleeting interest in, say, larger models or black women.

In 2008, Vogue Italia ran an issue in which it used only black models, amid a bout of fashion industry introspection about its woeful lack of diversity.

Yet this February, jezebel.com - which has tallied the model count at shows for several years - reported the whitest New York fashion week since 2008.

Blogger Jenny Zhang, who has written about fashion's representations of east Asian women, said: "I don't think this is just a fad because Asia is such a big luxury market. It doesn't seem to be a cultural shift, but a market shift - and maybe a cultural shift will come from that."

Dodai Stewart of jezebel.com, who has written about the lack of diversity among models, does not expect to see an Asian model on the cover of Vogue's all-powerful US edition any time soon.

"I would love to and I think people would buy it - but I have low expectations," she said.

"It's not that the increasing visibility of Asian models doesn't matter; it's just that it doesn't matter enough," added Minh-Ha T Pham, associate professor at Illinois University, Urbana-Champaign, and one of the self-proclaimed "clotheshorse academics" behind the Threadbared blog which explores the politics of fashion.

The lion's share of jobs still go to white models, she pointed out.

"In celebrating a few exceptional editorials, I think we can become complacent about the racial and economic asymmetries that organise the fashion industry at large."

Many wonder if Asian models are being celebrated for their individuality - or are being used to represent an Orientalised "other".

The much-hyped Vogue shoot styled all the models in matching mohicans - not, in itself, a stereotypically Asian look, but one which made it harder to distinguish between their very different looks.

Whether or not He and her compatriots appear in catwalkshows and glossy magazines is one question.

How they appear, it seems, is quite another.

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