Last night Burberry opened their flagship (and 37th) store in Shanghai, to great fanfare. Burberry are already hugely popular in Asia and the event saw all the British Burberry babes, sure - current faces Cara, Suki, Malaika Firth and Matilda Lowther - but also a bevvy of gorgeous Chinese celebrities.
Of course, we hadn't heard of any of them. The exposure to Asian fashion culture in the Western world is extraordinarily lacking mostly due to them having different social media networks for everything except Instagram. But we are nothing if not curious/very nosy. So we did some digging on the five most famous Chinese style icons Burberry had invited to the Shanghai opening. **
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Chiling Lin
According to Wikipedia, Chiling Lin (also known as Lin Chi-Ling) is famed for her 'gentle demeanor and physical beauty.' She sounds totally adorable. She's also a Tawainese model and actress and is so popular in China that commentators dubbed her power 'The Lin Chi-Ling phenomenom'. In 2009 she was the highest paid model in China. She also presents TV programmes and stars in movies screened all over Asia.
Du Juan
Not to be confused with Don Juan. Du was considered the first Asian model to ever 'crack' the west after she scored a* Vogue Paris* cover in 2006. She's since appeared on Vogue China 11 times, more than any other model. Interesting fact: Vogue China is so enormous (the first 500 pages are normally advertisements) that linen totes are often handed out with each issue, to carry around the 1,000 page manual. Oh, and there are often two issues a month, to accomodate such a plethora of pages. She's been in campaigns for Louis Vuitton and Yves St Laurent and together, her name and surname mean 'Cuckoo Rhodedenron' in English. Dreamy.
Linda Li
Hugely popular TV host and former model Linda Li once hosted a show called Beautiful Brides and after that I can find nothing else - which speaks volumes about how gaping the East-West media gulf is. I can also tell you, however, aside from the fact that I flipping love her all-burgundy tonal blocking, that she's really ahead of this live tweeting schtick- she live broadcasted her wedding to a very handsome Frenchman named Carlo Clerico on her blog, back in 2012.
Angelababy
Not her real name, sadly. Hong Kongese model, actress and singer Angela Yeung has 1.7 million followers on Instagram and once starred in a 'Japanese web drama', the premise of which is slightly blowing our minds. 'Tweet Love Story' streamed in July 2010 and was based on audience participation, via Twitter, where viewers could 'live complete' the missing lines spoken by Yeung, using a hashtag. We'd like to see Anne Hathaway rise to that challenge. As well as this mesmerising web drama, she has also been in lots of Chinese films, 50% of which have 'love' in the title. She's also engaged in an ongoing fracas when people keep accusing her of having plastic surgery; which the 25-year-old repeatedly denies.
Qin Shupei
Dang that suit is hot! V.Cara. Also known as Shu Qi, Shu Kei, Lin Li-Hui and Hsu Chi (fuck I'm confused) this Tawainese mega-babe once appeared in the Chinese version of *Playboy *and, having starred in a slew of Chinese blockbusters, has been on both the jury for Berlin and Cannes' film festivals. She's also modelled for Kenzo and Emporio Armani.
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Pictures: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.