Fashion: Fan BingBing

Who is Fan BingBing? That's a question that is coming out of every fashion-conscious editors/stylist/designer's mouth in the past week. The Chinese starlet, who's a huge star back in China, is making a name for herself wowing all the fashion onlookers on the Cannes red-carpet. The festival, which is a yearly, highly anticipated film event, or more so a fashion fish-tank, where the big ones and the small ones all gather and show-off what their stylists can do. And this year is definitely the year of Fan Bing Bing.

She has dazzled critics all over the world with her ranges of beauty and elegance. But is she really worth all the attention and near cult status? For sure she's great on the red-carpet showing glamor and poise, but does that really make her a style icon? One need to demonstrate a skill or an ability to fully grasp fashion and showcase that skill on different levels and platforms in order to be stirring the same fashion frenzies as Fan Bing Bing is doing right now...

But nonetheless, kudos to Fan for being the international center of attention this year. I bet she had not thought of being this successful style-wise in this year's festival. She's being compared to Hollywood starlets and she's not losing any style battle this year. With all the attention she's received from American press, I think maybe it's time for her to make a move to Hollywood, I feel like the Americans need a new Chinese actress to fawn over, one Zhang ZiYi is not enough.

I had to say though that I don't think all of Fan Bing Bing's looks at the Cannes is that great. She had one wowing debut with the dragon robe/gown, but then the ones after that are good, some great, but some are only so-so. For example, her black Armani Prive gown with the train tucked at the the back of the knee was not a sure winner to me. A lot of people on the bandwagon applauded the look, but I think when she's standing still it makes her look stubby, and the hair doesn't help either. But when she's moving and the ballooning train is lifted by the wind, the gown looks quite nice on her, the only thing is...those are some serious hooker heels she's wearing, never wear platforms that are THAT thick, in black, and showing your toes, that's just asking for a mean hooker joke. And the nude Elie Saab that she wore was great, but how can no one notice that her make-up is WAY too pale.

Fan Bing Bing in Elie Saab Couture


Fan Bing Bing, wearing Armani Prive, with Victoria's Secret model Douetzen Kroez

I'm happy that a Chinese actress is getting so many good review style-wise, it's about time that people acknowledge the style-sense of Chinese people. Fan's popularity this year is inevitable as she's one of a few Chinese starlets who are powerful enough to move merchandises in the stores, so her grabbing front row seats at LA, Valentino...etc is not a surprise. And who knows, maybe some of these positive press works toward building her status as the next INTERNATIONAL style icon so the brands that she's wearing will have that much more of an appeal and impact.