(CFI) After over a decade of dominating catwalks and fashion shoots, 29-year-old Chinese superstar model Liu Wen treats the next phase of her career with a great deal of solemnity.
“It’s a turning point,” Liu said in a Vogue interview. “Being a supermodel is when this career transforms from a job into something that now involves social responsibility.”
Seen wearing an Off-White dress at the recent Met Gala (shown above), Liu has won a number of accolades over her career, most notably that …
Liu is a Chinese model who has done a lot of “firsts”
Liu is the first East Asian model to perform in the Victoria’s Secret show, the first East Asian model to serve as a spokeswoman for Estée Lauder, as well as the first Asian to crack the top five on Forbes‘ list of the world’s highest paid models.
Just last month, Liu was featured as the prime example of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” artists list, credited as the eighth highest-paid model in the world with earnings of USD 7 million last year.
Liu’s stature as a supermodel flies in the face of her humble origins in which …
Liu had a tough time when she first starting working as a model in China
Standing at nearly six feet and possessing both dimples and angular features, Liu doesn’t fit the mold of your classic “Chinese beauty,” a fact that may have caused her problems when she first attempted to break into modeling.
After winning second place in a 2005 modeling contest, Liu moved from southern China to Beijing in order to work as a professional model at the age of 18. Liu admitted these early years were especially tough, but that she was able to persevere through sheer force of will.
Her struggle was finally rewarded in 2008 when she was invited to walk the runways of Paris fashion week. A year later, Liu performed in 74 shows for the Fall 2009 ready-to-wear season – the highest number of shows for a model that season.
Although her biggest successes have come from abroad, one of Liu’s biggest accomplishments is one grown in China …
Liu is the model with the biggest social media following in the world
In 2014, American Vogue credited Liu with “the biggest social media audience of any model,” a statement that has only become more relevant over time. At present, Liu has 18 million followers on the Weibo micro-blogging platform, while another 2.7 million fans follow her on Instagram.
Having so many fans may become a very relevant point because …
Liu says she wants to act
Even though Liu has never acted in a movie, that isn’t stopping this intrepid woman of many firsts. Liu has said, “I think modelling is close to acting and I hope that in the next five or 10 years I can do some acting,” before adding, “I don’t want to be just a beautiful girl in a movie – I want to be a cool girl like in a James Bond movie.”
Due to the popular Chinese film industry trend to select starring roles by the number of fans and followers they have, we may see Liu appear in a feature film sooner than later.
And yet, Liu has in fact acted before when …
Liu appeared in a reality show about “fake dating celebrities”
In 2015, Liu starred in We Are in Love, the Chinese spin-off of the South Korean reality show We Are Married, a show in which good-looking celebrities pretend to date each other for a TV audience.
For the show, Liu and South Korean singer Choi Siwon were paired up and made to complete a number of reality television show “challenges” with a romantic theme to them.
Because it’s “reality TV,” we know that the relationship between Liu and Choi must be fake, and for proof of that, we learn from Liu herself that …
Liu has never once been associated with a boyfriend
Back in 2010, Liu admitted to never having had a boyfriend:
All the models talk about boyfriends. Even my mom asks me, “Where is your boyfriend?” But I’m a little busy for that. Besides, in China girls marry at 24. So I have two years.
But it’s not as though Liu doesn’t want a boyfriend. Four years later, Liu said:
There’s nobody in my life – this is very sad! Perhaps you can put it in the interview that I’m looking for a boyfriend; they can contact my agent! There’s a lot of travelling with my job, and I can’t say to a boyfriend, “Please wait for me, I have to go on a job.” For love you can’t find someone the next day; it’s life, it has to be the right person at the right time.
At present, Liu is still not associated with any love interest, male or otherwise. But, it might very well be true that she is too busy for that because …
Liu has an insane nighttime beauty regimen
This is what Liu does every single night before she goes to bed:
My beauty routine is not really that much. First, you have to clean your skin before going to bed. I use a face cleanser and then use a lot of toner and moisturizer. Sometimes, I use the Advanced Night Repair serum, and a little bit of massage. Sometimes, your face has a lot of fluid, sometimes I do it very hard and hurt myself. It’s easy when somebody else does it for you! But it’s harder when you doing it yourself and you have to go up and down and really massage hard!
Sometimes, I use an Advanced Night Repair Power Foil mask up to three times a week. But if I’m very busy traveling, I use more.
— This article originally appeared on the Beijinger.
Source: China Film Insider