A laptop prize lured Liu Wen into modelling; she became China's first supermodel
At 17, Liu Wen entered a regional model contest in Hunan mostly because the prize included a new laptop. She missed the national top ten, yet within four years she walked 74 shows in a single season, still the most by any model of Asian descent, and later reached the Forbes highest-paid list.
Liu grew up in Lingling District of Yongzhou, the only child of a construction worker. She was tall enough to tower over classmates and began to hunch, so her mother pushed her toward modelling to fix her posture. After winning a 2005 semi-final of the New Silk Road World contest, she moved to Beijing, where she at first struggled because her look did not fit the commercial style clients wanted.
International attention came in 2007 through a Chinese Cosmopolitan editorial. In February 2008 she made her runway debut abroad for Burberry and closed Trussardi in Milan, then walked Chanel and Hermes in Paris the following week. For Fall 2009 she appeared in 74 shows across New York, London, Milan and Paris, the highest count of that season; the next season she did 70, second only to Constance Jablonski. In 2009 she also became the first woman of Chinese descent on the Victoria's Secret runway.
Firsts piled up. Estee Lauder made her its first East Asian spokesmodel in 2010, and The New York Times T Magazine called her China's first bona fide supermodel in 2012. In 2013 she entered Forbes' ranking of top-earning models at number 5, and her pay rose from $4.3 million to $7 million the following year. Models.com named her a New Supermodel in July 2014, a first for an Asian model, and Chanel made her a global ambassador in 2017.
Vogue became a running thread. She fronted American Vogue's 125th anniversary issue in March 2017, returned in April 2020 and again in May 2023, making her the first person of Chinese descent with three covers there. In 2024 she appeared alone on the front of French Vogue. Her online reach is huge too: Vogue said in 2014 she had by far the largest social audience of any model, and a Barbie modelled on her appeared in March 2021.
Source: Liu Wen (model)
