From celebrities and artists to top global luxury executives and best-selling authors, we’ve interviewed countless fascinating figures in the industry this year. For our year-end coverage, we’ve undertaken the difficult task of choosing just 10 interviews to highlight.
1. Hung Huang, CEO of China Interactive Media Group
Before starting her weekly Q&A column on Jing Daily, China’s most prolific media mogul and fashion expert shared her thoughts with us about the Met Gala, Chinese designers, Anna Wintour, the anti-corruption campaign, and more. (If you want to submit your own questions to Huang, click here to learn how!)
Key quote:
“Most Chinese designers are trying to win applause in Paris and Milan. They are looking outward, not inward.”
2. Ai Weiwei, Artist
Even though the world-famous artist only received his passport back in July this year, that didn’t stop him from directing a film in Berlin months before that—all from his computer in Beijing. In February, the artist talked to us about the process of directing a short in Berlin, I Love You.
Key quote:
“It’s not about complaining about the situation but, rather, to discover, to have this miracle happen—to be creative under these kinds of conditions. That’s the only revenge you can have—to become more creative and to get more freedom.”
3. Andrew Keith, President of Lane Crawford
As the department store has expanded its mainland China presence in recent years, Keith talked to us about the rise of niche fashion labels and the Chinese designers on his radar.
Key quote:
“We are a fashion business with limited typical gifting categories and hard luxury, so we have not been exposed to the impact of the anti-corruption measures in China.”
4. Victoria Beckham, Fashion Designer
We met with the world-famous British fashion designer and former Spice Girl backstage at the Woolmark Prize fashion award finals in Beijing, where she served as a judge alongside Angelica Cheung and Franca Sozzani.
Key quote:
"The Chinese woman understands fashion. She’s sophisticated. She understands quality and luxury."
5. Quentin Shih, Photographer
The New York- and Beijing-based photographer known for both his fashion and art shoots talked to us about his new “9 Dollars Fashion for Photography” series where he went out and shot fake luxury goods at a market in a third-tier city in China.
Key quote:
“This is definitely not a photo record of the real way of life in third-tier cities.”
6. Kevin Kwan, Author of China Rich Girlfriend
The Singaporean author followed up his best-selling Crazy Rich Asians with sequel China Rich Girlfriend this year, which dove into the scandalous lives of mainland China’s elite. While it was fictional, the book was based on his personal experiences.
Key quote:
“Some people may say it takes several generations for a fortune to truly be considered ‘old money,’ but I feel that China’s privileged classes are evolving at warp speed, and I think a profound shift has already begun.”
7. Michael Ward, Managing Director of Harrods
While he was in Beijing for British Polo Day, we sat down with Ward at the luxurious new NUO Hotel to discuss Chinese traveler spending growth and the UK’s visa policy for Chinese tourists—which he called “incompetent.”
Key quote:
“Seven years ago, they would be around about a fifth of the American business, and today they are five times the American business.”
8. Claire Chung, China Managing Director of Net-a-Porter
After she joined the global luxury fashion e-commerce powerhouse this May, we talked to Chung about the recent Yoox merger and what China’s e-commerce explosion means for the luxury market.
Key quote:
“In China, we have a younger customer profile than the global customer, so we see the role of Net-a-Porter’s content and editorial impacting them in an earlier age.”
9. Andrew Bolton, Curator, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
After joining Anna Wintour, Marissa Mayer, Wong Kar-wai, Silas Chou, and Wendi Murdoch onstage at the press conference for the opening of “China: Through the Looking Glass,” Bolton talked to us one-on-one about the process for creating the massive exhibition that set the record for the Costume Institute’s most-visited on record.
Key quote:
“I think a lot of designers are not inspired by the real China—they’re inspired by this fictional China that just really exists as a Western fantasy, and that’s really what you’re seeing with the garments here, is this mixture of some factual elements, but also some things which are very distant from reality.”
10. Dorothy Wang, Star of Rich Kids of Beverly Hills
With over 800,000 Instagram followers, the reality star has gained a massive amount of attention for her self-described “funemployed” and “fabuluxe” lifestyle. Although she lives in California, she talked to us about how she maintains strong ties with mainland China (her real estate mogul father is the founder of the Golden Eagle International Group in Nanjing).
Key quote:
“I understand there is a strong stigma right now against the ‘second-generation’ fuerdai, but I really am not like them at all.”
