When signing up to WeChat, the multipurpose messaging app that unites China, Wendy Yu is a pretty connected first friend to have. As founder of Yu Holdings, the millennial investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist is the backer behind British fashion brands Mary Katrantzou and Samantha Cameron’s Cefinn. This is in addition to Tujia (Airbnb’s Chinese rival, which has an $85 billion valuation) and DiDi, the largest taxi-hailing firm in China. Not to mention the billionaire businesswoman’s ongoing patronage of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York and support of The Business of Fashion’s China Prize to spotlight and fund up-and-coming Chinese design talent. Then there’s her most recent appointment, as China ambassador for emerging designers under Paris’s Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM), a role that sees Yu traversing from couture client to council.
Now, the Forbes China ‘30 under 30’ nominee (when we chat she’s just shy of her 30th birthday) is adding beauty to her portfolio. This winter brings the global launch of Yumee cosmetics, the first brand the altruistic investor has conceived and developed in-house at Yu Holdings. “My friends in the West have always been curious about why Asian women have this flawless, porcelainlike skin,” she begins, speaking from her home in Shanghai. “We have a lot of hidden rituals and secrets that are to be discovered but in a more modern way.”
In spite of the storm clouds that hover over us all as coronavirus brings globalization to a standstill, Yu remains upbeat and generous of spirit, keen to catch up since our last rendezvous in London — her other home base.
Denne historien er fra May 2020-utgaven av Harper's Bazaar Australia.
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Denne historien er fra May 2020-utgaven av Harper's Bazaar Australia.
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Grounded In Gotham
As she acclimatises to life under lockdown in her adopted city, model Victoria Lee reflects on fear, family and the fortitude of New Yorkers
Woman Of Influence Ingrid Weir
With a knack for elevating creative yet quotidian spaces and a love of bringing people together, the interior designer is crafting a sense of community among young artists.
CODE of HONOUR
At Chanel’s latest Métiers d’art showing, house alums Vanessa Paradis and daughter Lily-Rose Depp reflect on the red-carpet alchemy of Coco’s beloved bow, chain, camellia and ear of wheat.
Stillness in time
Acclaimed Australian fashion designer Collette Dinnigan’s new life in Italy has been a slowing down of sorts — but now, with coronavirus containment measures in play, life inside the walls of her 500-year-old farmhouse in Puglia has taken on a different cast, she writes
In the BAG
Aussie expat Vanissa Antonious from cult footwear brand Neous on going solo and stepping up her accessory offering.
uncut GEMMA
Forging her own path while paying it forward to the next generation, actor Gemma Chan is the (very worthy) recipient of the 2020 Women In Film Max Mara Face of the Future Award. She reflects on fashion, the Crazy Rich Asians phenomenon and red-carpet alter egos with Eugenie Kelly
THE TIME IS NOW
Esse Studios founder Charlotte Hicks’s slow-fashion model may just blaze a trail for the industry’s new normal. She talks less is more with Katrina Israel
COUPLES' THERAPY
Brooke Le Poer Trench ruminates on the trials and tribulations of too much time together
CALM IN A CRISIS
Caroline Welch was a busy woman who wrote a book on mindfulness for other busy women. Now, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, she has started to take her own advice
ACCIDENTALLY RETIRED
As we settle into the new normal of lockdown, Kirstie Clements finds a silver lining in the excuse to slow down and sample the low-adrenaline lifestyle of chocolate digestives, board games and dressing down for dinner
