At only 27 years old, Chinese-Australian Margaret Zhang is the new editor-in-chief (EIC) of Vogue China magazine, also setting the record as the youngest EIC at Vogue.
With her international experience and exceptional multi-platform digital expertise, she is set to become one its best assets. As part of the Vogue family, she can continue to bring global fashion to China while also showcasing Chinese culture and style to the rest of the world and to a younger generation.
Here are things that you should know about the new Vogue China EIC:
1. She comes from a diverse background and upbringing.
Her parents hail from Huangyan, a district of Taizhou, which is a city in Zhejiang Province, China. Zhang’s parents relocated to Australia, and her father became a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Sydney. Zhang was then born in a suburb of West Ryde, Australia. Later in life, she also spent some time living in New York, while traveling to China on a regular basis. Currently, she lives in Australia with plans to move to China once the pandemic eases.
2. She launched a successful blog at the age of 16.
Her passion for fashion comes from ballet. She even collected several Vogue magazines when she was younger. And when she was 16 years old, she launched a blog called, “Shine by Three,” which today mixes both personal and professional pursuits. The blog garners 500,000 unique visitors a month. On Instagram, she currently has 1.2 million followers.
Margaret Zhang. Photo courtesy of Margaret Zhang.
3. She has two college degrees.
Zhang has both a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney. While in college, she even attended her first New York Fashion Week. In recent years, she has attended the fashion shows of leading luxury brands, such as Balenciaga, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton.
4. She is a multi-hyphenate, including a director and business consultant.
Aside from expressing herself through fashion and styling, she does multiple projects in other fields. She is also a creative director, photographer, stylist, writer, model, and consultant. Her photography and styling work has appeared in L’Officiel, Harper’s Bazaar, Nylon, Marie Claire, and Elle.
In 2017, she also directed her first short film on “her visceral relationship with classical music on both performance and abstract planes” to critical acclaim. She currently has a YouTube channel with plans for her first feature film in the works. On top of that, she wrote a screenplay titled, “Number 65,” centered on a Chinese mother-daughter dynamic.
She is also the co-founder of Background, a global consultancy company that has worked with brands, like Airbnb, YouTube, and Mulberry, helping them bridge Western and Chinese cultures. As the new Vogue EIC, she is also thought to help ease the current tensions between Australia and China.
5. She has received multiple awards and recognitions.
In 2016, she was included in Forbes‘s 30 under 30 Asia list. That same year, she was also on TimeOut’s 40 Under 40. In 2015, Zhang won the Elle Digital Influencer of the Year award. In 2014, she was one of the Business of Fashion (BoF) 500, the definitive professional index of the people shaping the $2.4 trillion fashion industry. Furthermore, CNN has called Zhang a leading fashion photographer in Asia.
6. She gives back.
On her site, she sells her prints and books for several good causes: Red Cross Australia’s disaster response and recovery fund, the Salvation Army’s disaster appeal, and the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation.
As for some of her plans for Vogue China, she tells Vogue, “I think everyone who appears in Vogue China should be someone people can look up to in a really substantive way and who are driving innovation, regardless of what industry they’re in.”
We look forward to what Zhang has planned!
