Life and Leisure

The discovery of an angel in China

By Zhang Yuwei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-26 10:59

No typical beauty

To Carle, whom Liu calls bole (which means "the judge of talents"), Liu is more than beautiful. She is unique and breaks the cliches about Asian models.

"When you see her on the runway or in magazines, you don't say 'Wow, this Chinese girl is so this or so that.' You'd say 'Wow, this girl is stunning.' ... She escapes all the cliches of East and West, and she defines a new attitude, a new kind of women's power, too," Carle said.

"Fashion tends to embrace the exception, not the norm, and that helps push an ever expansive view of beauty," said Chris Gay, president of Marilyn Agency in New York, one of Liu's agencies.

Liu thinks that Chinese models can contribute a lot to the international fashion industry. She said she is grateful for the Chinese models in the 1980s and 1990s who first appeared in international fashion shows.

"We are now better off and have more opportunities because those models opened the market for us."

But to Liu, the Victoria's Secret lingerie fashion show is one of the pillars of her success. The show, which will be taped in New York and broadcast on Nov 30, is the biggest runway show in the world. It is seen on TV in more than 80 countries by more than 30 million people, Pfeiffer said.

Although Victoria's Secret has shot Asian models for its catalogue for many years, Liu was the first Asian model to be selected for its runway show when she appeared last year.

"It is not just about including an Asian girl or a black girl, we live in the world that everything is seen by everybody," Pfeiffer said. "We try to be as inclusive as possible but it has to be the right model."

Beginner's challenges

Despite her near-immediate fame, Liu didn't always have the easiest of times after she became a professional model.

"Modeling is a busy life. I don't get to eat and rest properly during the fashion weeks. But at the end of the day, it is rewarding," she said.

Two years ago, Liu's biggest challenge in her career was the language barrier.

"During the day, I was modeling, but at night, I was learning English. This industry requires us to meet more people, and communicate with designers and photographers. Communication is very important," she said.

Liu said she is thankful to her parents in Yongzhou, both of whom know little about fashion and modeling but gave her tremendous support when she was thinking about quitting a few years back.

"I miss home a lot. And I haven't spent the Chinese New Year with my parents in three years."

The best part of her career, however, is traveling.

"I have always wanted to travel. Every time I watched the TV show Animal Planet when I was little, I thought it must be nice to travel to different parts of the world to see different cultures," Liu said.

Now she partly has realized her dream - she travels between Paris, New York, London and Milan for fashion shows and rarely has her own spare time.

She said that spending a day in her apartment in Lower Manhattan doing absolutely nothing is a little like a vacation.

China Daily