As China’s first supermodel, Liu Wen has quietly become one of the industry’s most powerful players. She talks to Mark Smith about changing the perception of beauty.
Plenty of skincare products for my daily routine; comfortable shoes and pajamas; simple, casual clothes…” Some of the items in Liu Wen’s vacation suitcase could be described as standard issue for an off-duty, jet-setting supermodel. Others, not so much.
Take the vacation reading that Liu – international spokesmodel for Estée Lauder and the first East Asian woman ever to don the Victoria’s Secret Angel wings – has selected for her late summer trip around the mountains and bamboo forests surrounding Kyoto, Japan. Not for this single 28-year-old the cheap thrills of the vacation bonk- buster. Instead, Liu has packed a copy of The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, first published by French anthropologist Gustave Le Bon in 1895. Concerned with crowd psychology, religion, ideology and fanaticism, the book seems to speak to Liu’s fascination with the changing interrelationship of East and West: “[A century ago] the spread of culture and knowledge from one hemisphere to the other would take at least a year,” says Liu. “Nowadays it takes a minute, perhaps even a second, before you are exposed to something on the web or social media that you’ve never known before. Everyone around the globe is closer to each other, literally and metaphorically.”
Growing up as an only child in China’s mountainous southern province of Hunan, Liu had little contact with the world of high fashion. She aspired to be a tour guide, and only entered a modeling competition on a whim for the chance of winning its first prize – a computer. She came second and the computer evaded her grasp, but the competition set her on a successful new path; out of a population of 1.3billion, Liu was the first Chinese citizen to appear on Forbes magazine’s annual list of highest-paid models in the world, alongside Gisele Bündchen, Miranda Kerr, Karlie Kloss and Lara Stone.
Like many of her contemporaries, Liu has an Instagram account (2.1million followers and counting) with the attendant flurry of admiring emoji action, and says she relishes communicating with her fans (“I’m actually even more active on social media when I’m on vacation than when I’m working”). Unlike some of her fellow models, her snaps portray an outward-looking mind-set. “For me, differences in the way beauty is perceived are often the result of differences in culture,” says Liu. “Eastern philosophy tends to emphasize one’s interaction with community, while Western philosophy seems to focus on individual choice.”
Although she’s no stranger to the glamor of the red carpet – for evidence, look no further than her appearances at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and the Met Gala alongside fellow Lauder faces Kendall Jenner and Joan Smalls – Liu is admired for her low-key, tomboyish personal style. She enjoys the fact “that fashion and society are quite intimately interwoven,” she says. “Sometimes [fashion] establishes itself as the rebel, or it can follow tradition quite strictly.” Her vacation look includes a simple black baseball cap and a cotton shopping tote emblazoned with Japan’s favorite cartoon manga cat, Doraemon. Back in Hunan, Liu’s classroom nickname was Mulan, because – like the legendary warrior who inspired the Disney heroine – she blended in more easily in the company of boys than girls. Liu wasn’t at all offended by the comparison. One of her favorite pieces of Chinese writing is the 11th-century Autumn Day by the neo-Confucian poet Cheng Hao, because it reminds her “that maintaining a serene attitude helps you to digest any situation – good or bad – and create a positive outcome.” Her 5ft 8in height, considered ungainly during childhood, certainly had a positive impact on the runways of Milan.
These days Liu is becoming more involved creatively with the campaigns she’s fronting, and has recently lent her support to Apex for Youth, an organization that focuses on mentoring the Asian youth community in New York: “I’m proud to be a part of something that impacts society in both significant and minute ways,” she says. This year Liu spoke at Harvard University’s China Forum alongside captains of industry. “The concept of a model has always been around in Asia,” she says, “it was often just seen as the final act in the play that is fashion. Now there’s a stronger fascination with and fantasy around the job. I believe in the butterfly effect and I hope my small wings allow fashion to gain some understanding of Eastern tastes.”
Liu finds it heartening that women of East Asian origin are becoming more prominent players in fashion. “It’s through diligence that each of us can represent our culture, our gender – whichever parts of our identity – in the best way. To me, today’s [young] Asian women are working hard to pursue their ideals,” says Liu. “We have already made a lot of progress thanks to the toil of our mothers and grandmothers, and we should desire even better for generations to come.” Much more than desiring a better future, Liu is working to ensure it. Super model indeed.