The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
After 16 years as editor-in-chief of Vogue China, Angelica Cheung will resign from the post on December 8.
A letter was reportedly sent to staff at Condé Nast China to announce the move, which also said there were no replacement candidates ready to be confirmed yet. The Business of Fashion reached out to Condé Nast China representatives to confirm the news but had not received a reply prior to publication.
The news of Cheung’s departure has become a trending topic on social media site, Weibo, as it signals a new era for fashion media in China. In September of this year, Sophia Liao, the former president of Condé Nast China, who also worked for Condé Nast Group for 16 years, suddenly left her role, with the position since filled by Li Li.
In recent years, all of the editors that helmed China’s best-known fashion magazines over print’s boom period in the first decade-and-a-half of the 21st century have departed.
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First Harper’s Bazaar China lost Su Mang, then Shaway Yeh left her position at Modern Weekly and Elle China lost its long-term publisher and editor-in-chief, Xiao Xue. Cheung was the last remaining of this generation of incredibly influential editors in China who acted as power-brokers in the market, championing Chinese models and designers and acting as arbiters of what was fashionable for a rising generation of fashion and luxury consumers in the country thirsty for information and guidance.
In recent years these titles have struggled to retain their influence in a country that has shifted drastically to digital-first ways of consuming media. Young people in China, like those elsewhere in the world, are most likely to get fashion and beauty information from their favourite KOLs, as influencers are called locally, rather than storied fashion magazines. Whoever takes the reins from Cheung at Vogue China will be charged with steering the publication through what is sure to be a turbulent period for legacy media in China.
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Condé Nast said it is searching for a successor to take over after Zhang, whose appointment never became less divisive.