Wen Fang is a new face of fashion in China.Photo: Pear Video
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https://scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3043502/meet-chinese-villager-supermodel-looks People & Culture
Meet the Chinese villager with supermodel looks
- Wen Fang has used a rural catwalk to launch himself to national fame and endorsement deals
Blogger Wen Fang is gaining fame imitating fashion icons. Photo: Pear Video
He’s got the looks, he’s got the moves and now a rural Chinese villager who imitates supermodels is starting to get endorsement deals.
Wen Fang, who lives in Dali county in the northwest province of Shaanxi, made a name posting photos and videos of himself dressed in women’s fashion and strutting his stuff through his village.
He also applies make-up and poses like top models such as Liu Wen, He Sui and Sun Feifei.
He began posting the images on microblogging site Weibo in August last year and has attracted more than 350,000 followers.
“Then I received messages from people offering me commercials opportunities,” Wen said.
“The products I’ve been asked to endorse include clothes, underwear and even pots.
“Before that, I didn’t know that I could endorse products just because my modelling videos did well.”
Wen, 29, said he grew up in the small village and had liked “beautiful things” since he was a child.
He first saw modelling photos when he moved to a bigger town for high school and came across fashion magazines.
“After reading the magazines, I told myself I like these things,” Wen told Sohu.com. “But my parents didn’t support my idea [to work in the fashion industry] and my mother hoped I would find a job as a nurse.”
After finishing high school, as a “compromise by both parties”, Wen went to study graphic design at Shaanxi Fashion Engineering University in Xian.
Once in the workforce, he took up various jobs – from selling skincare products to being a waiter at a karaoke bar.
He started making the films a few years ago but didn’t share them until last year.
Now a full-time cosmetics blogger, Wen said his family did not know what his job was and many of his neighbours had no clue what he was doing, either.
He said he usually went out to shoot photographs or videos at night after his father went to sleep, or in the daytime after his father left home to do farm work.
“I do this secretly and normally go to places where there is no one else present so I won’t feel nervous performing in front of the camera,” Wen said.
That’s why he often shot in remote graveyards, he said.
Wen said he planned to continue working as a blogger and a model and hoped he could earn enough money to improve the lives of his two elder sisters.
Guangxi villager Lu Kaigang, better known as Lu Xianren, is also shaking up the rural catwalk space, attracting about 2 million fans with his countryside fashion shows.