Margaret Zhang’s First Vogue China Issue Is Here
SHANGHAI — New beginnings, indeed.
Margaret Zhang’s first cover for Vogue China was revealed today in the magazine’s September issue and the cover shot features 19-year-old dancer Fan Jinghan wearing Johannes Warnke amid a mountain desert sunrise in western China.
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The lead creatives on the cover shoot were predominantly female. The images were shot by Ma Hailun, a young Chinese photographer from Xinjiang with styling by Audrey Hu, one of the most in-demand names on the scene today and who was recently named fashion director for the publication. Makeup was done by Valentina Li and hair by Zhou Xueming.
“It was Margaret’s idea she wanted to shoot it at sunrise and very particularly timed because she thinks sunrise means new beginnings, hope, all the positive vibes,” Ma said. “She also wanted to have something very different but very China — that still has cultural heritage.”
Ma added that she was so happy to finally see the western parts of China highlighted to the world. The eastern, more developed parts of the country are typically what most people think of, not Zhangye Danxia National Park’s sandstone formations in Gansu where the shoot took place.
While this marks Zhang’s widely anticipated editor in chief debut for Vogue China after the departure of founding editor Angelica Cheung, the text “new beginnings” that runs across the magazine cover was a theme chosen for all the editions of Vogue for this month, Condé Nast said.
“In the spirit of ‘New Beginnings’, the global theme of Vogue’s September issue, Vogue China spent several months scouting the country, and the globe, searching for the next generation of new faces — of diverse backgrounds, ages, sizes, stories. Among them is Vogue China’s September issue cover model — Fan Jinghan, a 19-year-old dance student at Beijing Sport University.”
“Inside the issue features an array of new faces: Ruoyi Yi, Shermmaine Telan and Sano Turdiev lead a feature introducing China’s new wave of new designers and Su Xiaocan and Zhang Mengjie appear in a shoot shot by Zhang Chao wearing upcoming Chinese knitwear designer, Nume,” said Condé Nast.
Courtesy
Courtesy
Throughout the issue, there was a strong emphasis on using new faces and nontraditional models including Akane Wang, a London-based financial analyst; Kuku, a Shanghai-based design assistant at a fashion brand; Winnie (Fei Fei Zhong), a Shanghai-based Chinese-Congolese rapper and singer; Luoyi, who is just beginning her career as a model in Chengdu, and Huiying Zhu, an aspiring actor.
Courtesy
Vogue China’s Instagram account was cleared ahead of this debut. It now only shows three posts pertaining to the September cover shoot.
“A new dawn on a new chapter for Vogue,” one of the posts’ caption read.
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