China’s fashionable First Lady
China’s Peng Liyuan joins the ranks of the world’s most fashionable first ladies.
HE is the most powerful person in China and head of the world’s second largest economy, but when Xi Jinping was at the Brics summit in South Africa last week, all eyes in his home country were on the woman at his side.
Peng Liyuan, China’s new first lady, was the talk of Chinese social media during a recent trip to Russia when she emerged as a trendy contrast to her predecessors.
Pictures of Peng stepping off a plane with Xi in Moscow – the first stop on his first trip abroad since assuming China’s presidency in mid-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 BruniSarkozy, 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, central England. “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 Guangzhoubased outlet Exception, the company’s website crashed from an overload of traffic.
Exception was founded by a Guangzhoubased 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.”
When the names of recently retired president Hu Jintao’s wife, Liu Yongqing, and Jiang Zemin’s wife, Wang Yeping, who were both known to keep low profiles, are typed into Chinese search engines it brings up only