To Be Seen

Asian models are having a moment on the international stage, which has influenced an emphasis on local models in Singapore and Malaysia. However, insights from three models maintain that more change has to be made before both local industries can make significant progress.

- Manfred Lu & Asha Farisha

Growing up in Singapore and Malaysia where advertising is omnipresent Caucasian and Pan-Asian models were highlighted with razor-sharp focus. The use of Asian faces was scarce in traditional advertising, including fashion advertising. It became even more prominent in the 1980s when Singapore and Malaysia began modernising its society. With Western powers still in complete domination, locals in both countries looked towards them for ways to appeal as it provided a semblance of an international first-world achievement.

Things only began to change in the 2010s when China, South Korea and Japan grew exponentially in their influence on global cultural movements. The world veered towards engaging a new market in the East. With a region accounting for a demographic that makes up a seventh of the world’s population, it swayed fashion and beauty’s largest names to include East Asian faces in their global campaigns for the first time. However, the rise of Asian models in fashion only became as apparent as it is today because of the effects of the Black Lives Matter movement. As brands were called out for only using Caucasian and Pan-Asian models, it opened up opportunities for models who did not use to fit in the homogeneous, Western criteria.

Meanwhile, in present-day Singapore and Malaysia, the local modelling scenes have prompted changes to sentiments of diversity. Models from both countries have begun working with fashion and beauty’s largest names in New York, Paris and Milan. Although this emphasis on the use of local models has risen in prominence and is the new standard for the industry it was not until the intervention of global racial movements that truly incited local industries to acknowledge their worth.