Newsmaker Of The Week : Angelica Cheung
Our Newsmaker this week is Angelica Cheung.
As editor of Vogue China, she is one of the most influential women in fashion, having played a pivotal role in the development China’s fashion industry. Under her the leadership, the Magazine publishes about 400 to 500 pages a month and is considered one of the most successful international editions of the magazine with a readership of 1.2 million through a combination of its print, Web site and tablet editions.
Before joining Conde Nast, Cheung was editorial director of the Chinese edition of Elle and editor-in-chief of Marie Claire Hong Kong. She has also co-published a number of fashion magazines in Hong Kong. When she took the helm of Vogue China the veteran fashion editor had a very clear idea of what it should be, produce the best fashion magazine on the Chinese mainland, combining the highest production values with the most talented editors, the world’s leading designers, top photographers and models.
When Vogue launched in China in 2005, only a small elite sector of the country even knew the brand Vogue. Everything had to be built from scratch. Numerous titles in the country were made up of a large percentage of syndicated content, unhappily fused with local low budget content creating unbalanced magazines. Syndicated shoots featured fashion that was not available or indeed did simply not hit the nerve in terms of communication and aspiration. Conde Nast International’s chairman Jonathan Newhouse and Cheung decided to go all out for original content.
The 430-page magazine debut magazine featured Australian super model Gemma Ward and Chinese models Du Juan, Wang Wenqin, Tong Chenjie, Liu Dan and Ni Mingxi on its cover. They were photographed at the Bund in Shanghai by Patrick Demarchelier and styled by French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld. The first 300,000 copies, with the golden logo cover, were sold out, exceeding expectations and the magazine went into reprint twice.
Cheung now produces 16 issues a year (four special collections issues on top of the monthly magazine) to keep up with the demand for advertising, a full 200 more editorial pages than its American counterpart, according to Forbes.
In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Vogue China recently threw a bash in Milan. Mario Testino and Karlie Kloss were on hand to help editor Angelica Cheung blow out the candles. The iconic magazine’s 10th anniversary cover made history by bringing together ten of China’s top style icons; Zhang Ziyi, Fan Bingbing, Liu Wen, Tang Wei, Carina Lau, Vicki Zhao, Li Bingbing, Du Juan, Chris Lee, and Zhou Xun. “The women featured represent the qualities that our publication promotes. They’re beautiful, stylish, but at the same time are also people of achievement.”Cheung said.
Check back next week to find out who our next newsmaker is.
