The Big Bing Theory
When Fan Bingbing was playing the role of Jinsuo, a maidservant in the TV series Huanzhu Princess (Princess Pearl), nobody imagined she would be the super star who can represent the Chinese beauty on the international stage someday.
Today you may not remember the infantile Jinsuo anymore, but you won’t miss the Fan Bingbing who has been called “Fan Ye” (Esquire Fan). Turn on TV or open any fashion or entertainment magazine, she is always on the front page.
Fan has been supporting role or leading role in a lot of costume drama, but none of them gives people much impression. People think this girl looks like a maidservant and wouldn’t change this quality forever. Thanks to Feng Xiaogang, a movie director gave her a role in his movie Cell Phone, they started to realize that Fan was just the right type for those seductive mistress, they called her a little fox. Then Fan appeared on the FHM China magazine like she was really the seductive type. This made her a lot of noise and exposure. Esquire China helped her to build the Fan Ye reputation by putting her shaving virtual beard on the cover. All the readers had been astonished; they didn’t know she can be an androgyny gorgeous.
It is quite reasonable that Fan stepped into fashion circle more and more. Nobody else attends the fashion events so much and willing to try some controversial style. At first she seemed to be the only one who dare to wearing dragon robe or Chinese vase print dress on Cannes red carpet without a movie confidently. Now she becomes a role model, other actresses follow her to France and America to show off their beauty but none of them get as much applause as Fan. The oriental faces are hard to recognize for these foreign journalists. So when a Chinese actress shows up, they all call her Fan Bingbing even including Li Bingbing who is another follower of Fan these years. What a joke!
There are more jokes out there during the fashion weeks. It is a trend now that Chinese stars go to see these fashion shows. They all dressed weirdly trying to impress the media and produce some gossip. When they are still copying Fan’s move, she has been already ahead of them. Sitting next to Bernard Arnault is not a big deal to her. Louis Vuitton and Cartier almost take her as spokeswoman, you can see she will show on every event of these brands, but they wisely described she as “a great friend”.
The only competitor of her seems to be Zhou Xun, a talented actress with a lot of great work. Compare to Fan’s ambitious and aggressive; Zhou is more like effortless chic. No wonder she is the iconic guest and muse to Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel. But she is too effortless that she doesn’t care the fashion business too much. Li Bingbing and Yao Chen are chasing Fan closely. Li imitates Zhou’s environment-protection and charity strategy. Yao keeps a close relationship with Chanel as well, although she’s got many fans from TV screen and Weibo, but still can’t improve her to a high-class fashion icon.
In the latest couture week, Fan won these competitors again, and a lot! She walked for Stéphane Rolland as finale model. There was no such big honor to Chinese female stars before. The long silk white dress made her look like a goddess. Many people accused her of her body type is not skinny. But look at the skinny actress with a lot of Botox, they all look the same and they can’t wear an evening dress properly. They look rediculous before Fan.
Some people think Fan has done some plastic surgery too. And she fought back fiercely. “I can show the testing result from hospital if you like.” Whether true or false, it won’t affect her career and fashion position. She is beautiful enough and brave enough. The only question is how much does Rebecca pay her? And when is the expiration of this contract? I couldn’t wait to see the “International Fan” taking off the unearthly wig!
(Originally posted on 07/11/2012)
