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Jing Zhang

Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan has long been a symbol of China’s fashion soft power at high-profile global summits as she accompanies President Xi Jinping.
She has eschewed Western luxury labels and logos in favour of chic local brands and modern Chinese styles – a well-tailored qipao, say, or elegant scarves and coats in formal yet feminine colours.
Case in point: the outfit she wore as she stepped off the plane for the much-anticipated Xi-Trump meeting in the US on September 23.
Her grey dress, cinched at the waist, with a Chinese collar and small qipao-like slits on the long skirt, was paired with a pale pink scarf.

A similar theme emerged on September 24 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art; Peng’s diplomatic wardrobe spoke in a controlled tone, perhaps befitting of a famed soprano.
Beside American first lady Melania Trump’s black tweed jacket and skirt from Alexander McQueen, Peng wore a navy qipao-inspired dress traced in crisp white piping at the high Mandarin collar and cuffs – an architectural contrast that sharpened the silhouette. A silver floral brooch sat near the collar; pearl earrings quietly echoed the white trim. There was an insistent precision to the look: covered buttons, a nearly imperceptible belt at the waist, black stilettos lending lift and formality.

Peng’s clothes, even at their most ceremonial, tend to make their point through detail and proportion rather than great spectacle. The museum visit occurred while Xi Jinping and Donald Trump held private White House talks, a parallel programme intended to foreground cultural exchange amid the summit’s higher-stakes agenda.
For the State Dinner, however, Peng allowed herself one unmistakable declaration: red. Her floor-length gown, in China red, in the fullest sense, was cut with an open Mandarin collar, long sleeves flared at the elbow and a skirt that broadened at the hip before falling cleanly to the floor. She paired this with pearls and a black clutch with a gold embroidered floral motif.
In a picture otherwise dominated by black and white – Xi in a dark Chinese-style suit, Trump in a classic tuxedo, Melania in an exaggerated white bow Saint Laurent blouse and Dolce & Gabbana high-waisted black cigarette trousers – Peng’s dress had the force of punctuation and power.
Red may signal luck, happiness and prosperity in Chinese culture, but it is also inevitably the colour most imbued with national meaning.


Peng is known to prefer Chinese designers, with Ma Ke being the name most associated with China’s first lady. The Jilin province-born designer told the media in 2014 that when she designed for Peng, she did not go out of her way to highlight anything in particular, only to express the wearer’s inner confidence.
“That is also my understanding of the quality and spirit of the Chinese people – there’s no need to please others, or to be ostentatious,” Ma said. “It is a kind of reserved elegance.”
Most of Peng’s outfits and accessories remain logo-less. Even when she wears a specific designer, no Chinese brand would dare openly use her name for its own marketing purposes – a system very different from how American, British and French first ladies regularly endorse a variety of luxury brands, preferably from their own country’s fashion industry.
Peng prefers a more understated approach to her fashion brand choices, but the effect is no less powerful for China’s home-grown brands. Her early embrace of structured silhouettes and modernised Chinese styles, such as the mandarin collar, was a precursor to the current Neo-Chinese Gen Z fashion trend that has swept over the mainland and beyond in the past three years.


A former singer and military personnel, Peng is noted as being the first Chinese first lady in the Communist Party to project a glossy, well-dressed image on the global arena.
Peng’s stylistic impact can be felt throughout China. The fact that it has even landed her on Vanity Fair’s Best Dressed List in 2013 is something that the Chinese are immensely proud of.
Additional reporting by Kevin Kwong


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How Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan is a symbol of China’s fashion soft power

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Xi and Peng wave upon their arrival in California for a meeting with Barack Obama on June 6, 2013. Photo: Xinhua

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Chinese culture

Peng once again shows off exclusively Chinese designs as she accompanies President Xi Jinping on Washington visit


Peng once again shows off exclusively Chinese designs as she accompanies President Xi Jinping on Washington visit.


Peng Liyuan

How Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan is a symbol of China’s fashion soft power

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Peng once again shows off exclusively Chinese designs as she accompanies President Xi Jinping on Washington visit

Peng once again shows off exclusively Chinese designs as she accompanies President Xi Jinping on Washington visit