The Mulan Effect Has a Shelf Life — Inside the Grueling, Calculated Path From Chinese Fame to Global Runway Credibility
There is a photograph from the 2024 Paris Fashion Week that circulates in Chinese entertainment industry circles like a kind of unofficial benchmark.
Liu Yifei sits front row at Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer show, photographed by Getty Images and syndicated across more than forty international media outlets. Her appearance is treated not as a curiosity but as an expectation. There is no translator’s note, no explanatory caption identifying her simply as a “Chinese actress.” Only her name, the fashion house, and the collection.
Industry veterans often point to that image as something extraordinarily difficult to manufacture: earned legitimacy.
Now, with Liu Yifei’s luxury ambassador portfolio entering a mature stage rather than an expansion phase—a natural cycle for stars at her level—the global fashion industry is already asking its next question:
Who comes after Liu Yifei?
The Architecture of Cross-Cultural Fashion Credibility
The journey from Chinese celebrity to internationally recognized fashion figure has never been straightforward, and the luxury industry’s constant search for fresh faces only makes it more demanding.
Earlier generations helped establish the blueprint.
Fan Bingbing transformed the Cannes Film Festival into a personal runway.
Gong Li built decades-long relationships with European luxury houses.
Supermodel Liu Wen opened international runways for Chinese talent.
Yet models and actresses operate under entirely different systems of credibility.
Luxury groups such as LVMH, Kering, and Richemont increasingly expect Chinese ambassadors to satisfy two audiences simultaneously:
- They must remain aspirational to Chinese consumers, who continue to represent one of luxury’s most influential customer groups.
- They must also appear naturally cosmopolitan to Western editors, photographers, stylists, and fashion audiences.
Historically, those expectations have often pulled in opposite directions.
“The old model was simple,” says one senior Beijing-based talent agent who requested anonymity because of ongoing negotiations.
“Become huge in China, secure the ambassador deal, then show up in Europe. Today it’s much more demanding. You need international press, award-season visibility, overseas social media, and genuine cultural presence. You can’t look like you’re visiting another market anymore.”
Liu Yifei solved much of that equation through Disney’s Mulan. Although the film generated mixed reactions critically, it positioned her inside one of Hollywood’s most recognizable entertainment ecosystems and gave Western audiences a familiar narrative through which to understand her career.
Luxury brands noticed.
But Mulan represented a rare structural opportunity.
The next generation will almost certainly have to build its own.
The Leading Contenders
Among fashion publicists, celebrity stylists, and luxury executives in Shanghai, Paris, and Milan, three names surface repeatedly.
Zhao Lusi
Zhao Lusi has pursued perhaps the most strategically modern path.
Rather than relying solely on China’s domestic ecosystem, she has cultivated audiences on international short-form platforms where language barriers matter less.
Netflix’s global distribution of Hidden Love significantly expanded her recognition throughout Southeast Asia while introducing her to overseas Chinese communities and younger Western viewers.
Those audiences frequently function as cultural bridges between Eastern and Western markets.
Brands including Valentino and Fendi have already experimented with regional collaborations.
The remaining question is whether Zhao’s approachable romantic-drama image possesses enough visual versatility for long-term luxury positioning.
At the highest ambassador level, fashion increasingly favors icons rather than personalities.
Zhou Dongyu
Zhou Dongyu represents an entirely different proposition.
As one of China’s most critically respected actresses and a Golden Horse Award winner, her artistic reputation is firmly established.
What she lacks is sustained international media cultivation capable of transforming festival prestige into lasting fashion influence.
According to sources familiar with her management strategy, that international positioning is progressing deliberately rather than aggressively.
It may ultimately prove slower.
It may also prove stronger.
Liu Haocun
Liu Haocun may be the industry’s most carefully constructed long-term project.
Following her breakout performances in Zhang Yimou’s One Second and subsequent collaborations with a major European luxury house, her image has consistently leaned toward Western editorial aesthetics.
Her styling often resembles the visual language of Vogue Paris more than Vogue China—a subtle distinction, but one that international creative directors immediately recognize.
What Luxury Houses Actually Value Today
The phrase “international fashion influence” is often misunderstood.
Within luxury boardrooms, it no longer simply means celebrity popularity.
Follower counts on Weibo and Douyin still matter for China’s domestic market, but they are no longer the decisive factor they were before the pandemic.
As luxury companies adjust to slower Chinese consumption and changing spending priorities among younger consumers, ambassador selection has become considerably more selective.
According to multiple senior executives speaking on background, today’s luxury brands increasingly value something more difficult to quantify:
Cultural authority.
The ideal ambassador should accomplish two things simultaneously:
- Introduce Chinese consumers to the brand’s global identity.
- Translate the brand’s identity into Chinese cultural conversations without appearing artificial.
The distinction may sound subtle.
In practice, it separates celebrities who simply wear luxury from those who genuinely shape its meaning.
Liu Yifei belongs firmly in the latter category.
That famous Paris Fashion Week photograph demonstrates why.
The Long Game
The honest answer is that no obvious successor has fully emerged.
Every serious contender still carries unanswered questions.
Fashion executives are watching for something far more significant than one successful campaign or one viral appearance.
They are watching for accumulation.
The right film premieres.
The right editorial covers.
The right front-row appearances.
The right balance between visibility and restraint.
The Chinese celebrity who eventually succeeds Liu Yifei will almost certainly do so without repeating Liu’s journey.
The industry has evolved.
The global market has changed.
Luxury houses have grown more sophisticated, and they are no longer searching for another Mulan story.
They are searching for something entirely new.
As fashion has always understood, true influence cannot simply be replicated.
It has to arrive looking inevitable.
And whoever eventually achieves that status is probably already sitting somewhere inside the room.
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