Cover Cici Xiang
moderating M+’s
panel at Madame
Song’s exhibition (Photo: courtesy of M+)
Cici Xiang moderating M+’s panel at Madame Song’s exhibition (Photo: courtesy of M+)
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The gallery owner, model and actress is carving her own path in the art and fashion worlds—inspired by Chinese fashion influencer Madame Song from the ’70s, who redefined what contemporary women could be
Despite her pioneering contributions to the Chinese fashion and business worlds in the 1980s, few people know much about fashion influencer Song Huai-Kuei (1937-2006), widely known during her lifetime as Madame Song. The people she helped to find success on the mainland, including Italian fashion designer Pierre Cardin, received most of the media attention. Even for those in the industry, like Chinese supermodel Cici Xiang, Song’s name rarely comes up in conversations.
But M+ museum’s exhibition Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China, which runs until April 2024, shines a spotlight on this little-known individual. The exhibition highlights how, when China reopened itself to international trade in 1978 after the Cultural Revolution—a time when economic activities came to a halt—Song played an instrumental role in cementing East-West cultural exchanges and revolutionised China’s fashion landscape as an artist, businesswoman and fashionista. She was also pioneer who trained China’s first group of runway models, so it made sense for Xiang to moderate a talk at M+ in July when the exhibition opened.
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Above From left: Xiang, Pi Li, Wu Mo, Tanja Cunz (Photo: courtesy of M+)
From left: Xiang, Pi Li, Wu Mo, Tanja Cunz (Photo: courtesy of M+)
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First, though, Xiang needed to learn more about Song. “After visiting the exhibition, I was [impressed] by how Madame Song was a ‘slasher”, she says, referring to someone who takes on multiple careers. “She didn’t see there being a limit to what she could do with her career in fashion, art, culture, film, and even food and drink. This also reminds me of my own career development: I started painting in secondary school before joining the fashion industry. Then I went to study art history [at University College London]. Now my work spans two fields. I used to think that there was no one in China with such diversity for me to learn from, but today I’ve learnt so much more about Madame Song, and she is now a new icon in my heart.”
While Song and Xiang are from different generations, there are distinct similarities between their career path. When the millennial started her fashion career a decade ago, she was the only Asian model to walk in Louis Vuitton’s spring/summer 2014 show; in the same week, she walked in 23 more shows in four major fashion cities—New York, London, Milan and Paris—which made her one of the most talked-about rising stars of the year.
But it wasn’t an easy path. In the 2010s, Xiang observed that Chinese models were offered a spot on the international stage mostly because brands were hoping to tap into the Chinese market, and casting Chinese models would make this easier. Feeling that she was being cast for her race and not her talent, she took a leap of faith and returned to school to study art history, a subject she had always loved. “When I visited art exhibitions, I could always project myself into the artwork. I saw how art could [help me] express my beliefs and the values I hold dear.”
Little did she expect that her decision would also give her a new perspective to when she returned to her previous work. “Like many supermodels overseas who have other careers on top of modelling—some even have charity projects—I hope to push to highlight the innate qualities and multifaced sides of models in the Asian modelling market,” she says. Xiang herself has been a partner of Star Gallery, a modern and contemporary art gallery in Beijing, since 2021 while remaining active in the fashion industry.
There is another change in China’s fashion industry that Xiang is happy to see. “This is my tenth [consecutive] year as a model, and I see that Chinese designers have become more popular in recent years [in China’s fashion landscape], when in the past it was dominated by international brands. Today, China is no longer seen as the ‘factory of the world’; it has gradually developed its own edge and ways of business. Models no long only want to work with international brands but also Chinese brands,” she says. “Now when I’m abroad, I also wear more Chinese designers—last time I went to Cannes Film Festival, I wore a lot of their pieces.
Coming up, Xiang hopes to use her various roles to become a bridge between fashion and art, and take advantage of the increasing collaborations between designers and artists. She believes art can inject a new energy into the fashion world, while fashion can introduce art to a wider circle of people.
Much as Song forged, from fashion, a path that bridged the east and west and redefined what a contemporary woman is, Xiang sees the limitless possibilities of her own journey.
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
