Asian models from fashion week

When Devon Aoki made her big debut into the fashion world, I questioned why?  how?  and again WHY?  Sure, I was excited to finally see an Asian face in the fashion spreads but why, why in the world HER?  I had non-model FRIENDS who were far prettier and taller than Devon all around me.  Why did the fashion world choose and embrace Devon with her freckly round face, perma-frown and short stature (5’7” is nearly midget sized in the modeling world and only Kate Moss was able to get away with it still to this day).  And here Devon was suddenly gracing the covers, walking the catwalks and gaining international fame all the while inadvertently representing Asian beauty for us all.

I likened Devon to Alek Wek another quizzical ethnic newbie on the fashion front.  Both were loved for their untraditional beauty and extreme racial features.  “Exotic” (I hate that word) is the euphemistic term I’d use to describe their quote unquote beauty.  That’s why I get so excited whenever I see “real” Asian beauties grace the runways.

This year we had several noteworthy examples.Liu Wen, the first Asian to walk the famed Victoria’s Secret Runway is both tall (5’10”) and stunning.

And who can forget Daul Kim,(photographed above) Karl Lagerfield’s muse and featured model in his Chanel videos.

Project Runway’s alum, Daniel Vosovic’s presentation during NY fashion week fall 2010 surprisingly showcased ONLY Asian models.  With the exception of his runway show though, Asian models were scarce (not surprising).

At every fashion week that I attend, I always play a solitary, secret game of “Where’s Waldo” except instead of Waldo, I’m looking for the elusive Asian model.  Though challenging, this game is usually short on fun ‘cuz usually after finding 1 girl, it is game over.  Here are some of the girls I spotted throughout the week.

Apparently other people were playing this game and spotted other Asian faces on the NY runways too.  Here’s a quantitative summary showing total number of shows each of the top Asian models walked this past Feb 2010:

• Bibi S: 1
• Bonnie Chen: 7
• Carolyn Gao: 4
• Charlene Almarvez: 11 [open: 1]
• Daisuke Ueda: 1
• Danni Li: 9
• Daniel Liu: 1
• Dinara Chetyrova: 6
• Emma Pei: 8
• Eugenia Mandzhieva: 9 [opened: 1, closed: 1]
• Gwen Lu: 1
• Hyoni Kang: 11 [opened: 1, closed: 1]
• Irene Kim: 1
• Jasmine Yan: 6
• Jenny Shimizu: 1 [closed: 1]
• Kiki Kang: 2
• Lakshmi Menon: 6
• Lela: 6
• Liu Wen: 22
• Liu Dan: 3
• Noma Han: 2
• Paula Kawanishi: 1
• Philip Huang: 5
• Ping Hue Cheung: 5
• Selina Khan: 5
• Shi-Han Hsiao: 3
• Shu Pei: 23
• Tao Okamoto: 23 [closed: 1]
• Wang Xiao: 1

Who’s your favorite and why?

Oprah’s closet and other inspirational celeb closets to die for

This month’s O magazine caught my eye because Oprah was on the cover showing off shoes from her to-die-for shoe closet.   It reminded me of my earlier post on celebrity closets which attracted a lot of attention and so I had to capture the Oprah photos and share with you some additional closet photos (including MINE) as a follow-up.

Here’s MY shoe closet (on a budget of course).  I made the shelving unit myself using an Ikea unit that I bought on sale They ran out of white shelving which is what I would have preferred but I didn’t care so much being that I knew it would be hidden behind the curtains shown here.  The sheer, white floor-to-ceiling curtain and wall-to-wall curtain rod were also inexpensive finds from Ikea.  The shoes, well they were all bought either on sale or were gifts from my lovely friends at Bloomies, Bruno Magli, Gucci and Ferragamo.