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Showing posts with label China's First Lady Peng LIyuan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China's First Lady Peng LIyuan. Show all posts

Monday 8 April 2013

Dressing stature

Elegant couple: China’s President Xi Jinping and wife Peng disembarking from a plane on arrival at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, recently for a two-day visit. – EPA
 
JUST when you think there are no new personalities projected into the spotlight, comes the debut of the First Lady of China (Peng Liyuan) last week. Her first foreign engagement was accompanying the president on an official visit to Russia and a few countries in Africa.

When the plane doors opened, people saw a modern elegant lady, unlike her predecessors.

She took the husband's arm when walking down the stairs from the plane instead of walking behind holding the rails. Most unconventional.

Everyone knows that no matter how independent we are, we need to hold on to our man for support when we are navigating steps on high heels. Especially where there is an audience and we cannot afford to trip.

It took a couple of days before people could figure out what “branded” items she was wearing. The bag she was carrying looked nice but did not have the conspicuous logos of a luxury brand that one can spot from a distance.

Throughout the whole trip, there was only a pair of modest pearl earrings. There were no necklaces, strings of chunky pearls or big and flashy stones.

It was just so refreshing. Now wonder there was incessant news about her in the foreign and domestic media in China.

Given her stature, she did not need to dress to scream, “look at me”. People will be looking and scrutinising her. It reminds me somewhat of Adele. If you have a great voice, you can just sing. You don't need all the massive accompaniments.

When you are in London or Paris, the crowd who buy designer bags like they are free, without needing to think long and hard over which one to buy, are from China. Here is now someone who has shown that you can look elegant, fashionable and well put together without the need to carry expensive brand names.

I can understand the need to dress up. When one is a young up-and-coming executive, one has to drive a nicer car and carry some expensive branded items to show either taste or success. But as we progress in life, the need to create an impression dissipates.

I like this interesting story about dressing and change in a CEO interview. To change the work culture and have people take pride in their work, the new CEO initiated a “dress like you are attending a wedding” campaign as his first project.

His message was simple. Be bothered to dress up for work because it is important. Let your dressing be a reflection of your professional attitude. When you are a slob, you will be sloppy.

Have you noticed the ladies selling snacks on the Shinkansen? Their hair tied up neatly and makeup immaculate. Uniform is neat, tidy and clean. They wear black cord shoes with heels. They might be pushing a trolley and selling snacks but they are professional and polite. They have their processes. Before they leave the compartment, they bow and say goodbye.

Have you seen the lady who welcomes you as you drive into the shopping centre in Seoul? She is in a black formal looking suit, looking immaculate and welcoming you as you drive into the car park. She does this with pride, like welcoming a VIP. I thought it was too much.

We did try once to dress with the times. During the initial dot-com days, we thought we could dress casual and carry a backpack. After the dot-com craze fizzled out, so did our dressing. It was very difficult to go into a boardroom looking like you are better suited for a different place. You can dress what you like at your office but when you are with clients or in their office, you need to dress suitably so that clothes are not the distraction or the talking point.

As a consultant, I always felt the need to dress well enough to look professional and carry the right demeanour to inspire confidence. Somehow, in the early days of a client relationship, casual just don't cut it.

It is not right to judge someone by their dressing. However there are many studies that show the impact that dressing and appearance has on the first impression.

Coming back to Peng Liyuan. She impressed on the world stage with good taste, projecting a unique personal style. Let's hope she is able to sustain the excellent dress sense by not having to wear chunky and expensive branded items.

TAKE ON CHANGE
By JOAN HOI 

Joan Hoi is the author of Take on Change. She is hoping that the trend for “no brand” high fashion has been sparked!

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Friday 5 April 2013

First lady in the limelight

China's Peng Liyuan joins the ranks of the world's most fashionable first ladies.


Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan arrive in Moscow. Photograph: Ivan Sekretarev/AP


He is the most powerful person in China and head of the world's second largest economy, but when Xi Jinping arrives for the Brics summit in South Africa on Tuesday, chances are that all eyes in his home country will be on the woman at his side.

Peng Liyuan, China's new first lady, was the talk of Chinese social media at the weekend during a trip to Russia when she emerged as a trendy contrast to her predecessors.

Pictures of Peng stepping off a plane with Xi in Moscow on Friday – the first stop on his first trip abroad since assuming China's presidency on 14 March – went viral online with praise for her attire: black high heels and stockings, an understated leather bag and a light blue scarf emerging from beneath a dark trenchcoat, collar turned up against the wind.

The 50-year-old People's Liberation Army singer is often compared to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Michelle Obama, Raisa Gorbachev and even Kate Middleton: a charismatic performer, trendsetter and dash of colour in an otherwise monochrome regime.

"I kind of knew she would play some role in public life, but not in this way," said Wang Zhengxu, an associate professor of contemporary Chinese studies at the University of Nottingham. "Somehow she just hijacked the limelight from Xi Jinping on Chinese cyberspace. That's quite a dramatic development in my view."

After bloggers identified Peng's bag, coat and scarf as products from the Guangzhou-based outlet Exception, the company's website crashed on Friday from an overload of traffic. On Sunday the site was still loading only intermittently.

Exception was founded by a Guangzhou-based couple in 1996 who now run about 100 outlets across the country. "[Its CEO] once said Exception is best suited for this type of woman: a bit artistic, someone who appreciates quality but also stands apart, someone who understands international trends but wants to express her eastern flare," the LadyMax fashion website reported. "Is this not Peng Liyuan's style?"

The Beijing-based entrepreneur Wang Lifen said Peng's life story was a classic inspirational tale.

"Born into poverty, she used her innate singing ability to leave her home town, worked diligently to complete a master's degree at China Conservatory of Music, and used her gradually growing fame and visionary intelligence to start dating a low-level cadre," she wrote. "This is why so many people admire her."

The recently retired president Hu Jintao's wife, Liu Yongqing, and Jiang Zemin's wife, Wang Yeping, were both known to keep low profiles. Looking for their names on Chinese search engines brings up only fragmentary biographical information such as birth dates and alma maters.

When Xi assumed the Communist party's top post in November, analysts predicted that Peng would remain as low-key as her predecessors: after all, the soprano had chosen to eschew large-scale performances in recent years to avoid drawing attention from her husband's political career.

Yet Peng's arrival in Moscow was covered extensively by China Central Television and received a full-page spread in the Beijing News. The couple arrived in Tanzania on Sunday, and on Monday Peng was pictured in a bright red scarf casually draped over a tailored black jacket and white dress.

Some commentators have expressed hopes that she will take a more active role in forthcoming visits to South Africa and the Republic of Congo. Peng was appointed as the World Health Organisation's goodwill ambassador for tuberculosis and Aids in 2011.

Peng joined the People's Liberation Army as a civilian at 18 and had already reached the heights of folksinging fame when she first met Xi in the south-eastern province of Fujian in 1986. She is best known for her 24 years as a soloist at the annual spring festival gala, perhaps the most-watched television event in the world, belting folk songs in her brassy, nasal soprano.

In one widely shared video clip, Peng, dressed in military garb, sings about "bravely advancing for victory" amid a chorus line of bayonet-wielding soldiers. The stage show is juxtaposed with stock footage of battle-ready Chinese tanks, jets and warships.

Internet censors have given largely free reign to positive discussion of Peng but have kept a grip on the conversation. Terms such as "Auntie Peng" and "first lady Xi" have been blocked on Sina Weibo. Wang Zhengxu said censors probably wanted to maintain Peng's image as a symbol of public diplomacy rather than brash commercialism.

Guardian News & Media

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Saturday 30 March 2013

China's First Lady Peng Liyuan leading by example

China’s First Lady Peng Liyuan made a fashion statement during a recent visit to Russia and Africa. 




AS Xi Jinping continues his first official visit to African countries as the Chinese President, his wife Peng Liyuan is as much of a star attraction back in China.

The close attention on Peng is not so much due to her new role as China’s First Lady but rather the fashion statement she made during the trip.

Peng arrived in Moscow, Russia, on March 22 with her husband in a double-sided buttoned navy blue coat with a black handbag.

Her clothes matched perfectly with that of her husband’s.

She wore a jacket decorated with motifs of blue flowers and birds over a black dress and carried a black purse when attending an event at the MGIMO University in the Russian capital.

In Tanzania on Monday, she appeared in an all-white jacket and skirt.

The navy blue coat and black handbag she wore and carried in Russia started the “Liyuan-Style” mania.

Soon, word spread on the Internet that the coat and handbag were not from luxurious foreign brands but were made by Exception de Mixmind, a Chinese brand established in Guangzhou in 1996.

After confirmation of this by the Guangzhou City Administration of Quality and Technology Supervision on its microblog, many Chinese praised Peng for supporting local brands and for carrying the pride of China during her visit.

Some Netizens said Peng looked “elegant” and “nicely-matched” with her clothes, while many others started creating forum threads on what clothes the First Lady would wear next.

Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology art and design department head Xie Ping was quoted by Beijing News as saying that the coat was designed based on a classical Western army uniform.

Qingdao Municipal Textile and Fashion Association secretary-general Zheng Mingmei said that the coat and handbag that Peng used in Russia fitted her personality and character well.

“What the First Lady did by wearing a local brand has no doubt increased the reputation of China-made brands internationally and boosted the confidence of our fashion brands in Qingdao,” she told Qingdao Morning News.

According to reports in China, major search engines and online shopping websites have seen a significant increase in the number of search words such as “Liwai (Exception in Mandarin)” and “Wuyong (Useless which is the sister brand of Exception)”.

The Exception de Mixmind outlets in Chengdu and Qingdao have received more customers than before, with many asking about the navy blue coat and black handbag worn by the First Lady.

The staff at the outlets told customers that they did not sell models of the coat and handbag.

Despite that, many customers still walked away with handbags resembling that of Peng’s.

Prices of its spring collection cardigans and long cotton shirts ranged between 1,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan (RM490 and RM980) while new handbags were priced between 2,000 yuan (RM980) and 3,000 yuan (RM1,470).

Qingdao Morning News reported that Peng’s coat should belong to last year’s winter collection series and cost around a few thousand yuan while the handbag similar to that of Peng’s was estimated to have cost 5,000 yuan (RM2,450).

“Compared with other coats and handbags around the same range, design and craftsmanship, the coat and handbag used by her were not too pricey,” said a staff.

Even before the First Lady fashion mania, Exception de Mixmind had already been quite an established brand.

Chinese tennis star Li Na wore a stand-up collar white shirt with black motifs during her photo call after her triumph in the French Open in 2011, and that shirt was from Exception’s 2007 “Tea Energy” series.

At that time, Exception founder and chairman Mao Jihong quashed rumours that the company sponsored Li Na’s fashion wear, saying that she was never their brand ambassador but they were delighted to see her wearing their label.

Of course, this time, it’s a bit different.

With Peng’s stature as the First Lady and a celebrity (Peng is one of China’s top female sopranos who sings a repertoire of ethnic and patriotic songs), this gives the brand more recognition.

In its editorial, Beijing Morning Post said there were three reasons why Peng received so much attention from the people and media.

One was that she was using made-in-China goods, second the clothes and handbags were not from luxury brands and third being her poise in leading by example.

“Nowadays, luxury consumption has be­c­ome a trend to show off one’s wealth.

Peng’s handbag is in a way a wake-up call for many Chinese who pursue luxury goods.

“After the Chinese Communist Party’s national congress (last November), the government outlined eight guidelines on improving its working style.

“Peng showed an important detail which was advocating austerity and a frugal lifestyle,” it said.

MADE IN CHINA BY CHOW HOW BAN

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