On September 23-25, Madame Peng Liyuan, usually referred to as China's First Lady in international media, even though the country doesn't officially use the title, joined her husband, President Xi Jinping, on an official visit to the United States. And we figured there's no time like the present to dive into the topic that is… China's First Lady diplomacy. 

First Lady diplomacy is the softest of soft power: unelected, unscripted and unfailingly photographed. It operates in the spaces between formal negotiations: the arrival tarmac, the state banquet, the cultural tour. And fashion is its most visible dialect.

Since her first official overseas visit to Russia in 2013, Peng has consistently favored domestic Chinese designers over Western luxury houses, basically doing China Chic before the term had even been coined. Her wardrobe, often built around the qipao, a traditional Chinese form-fitting dress, is an assertion: Modern China has its own aesthetic vocabulary, it is fluent and it strides with confidence.

In May 2024, when Xi and Peng paid an official visit to France, the European press in particular raved about Peng's ensembles throughout, specifically a long white coat "casually" thrown around the shoulders during a visit to the Orsay Museum in Paris on May 6. The press hailed her as a Class Act.

On the recent U.S. visit, Peng began communicating in that aesthetic lexicon the moment she stepped off the plane: "a slate-gray, waist-cinching dress with a Chinese collar and small qipao-style slits cut into the long skirt, paired with a silky, pale pink scarf," a September 25 feature piece on American Vogue's website read. It immediately had all the stylemarks of her diplomatic wardrobe.

Peng's sartorial approach to First Lady diplomacy extends to her accessories. For her visit to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., for example, she wore a deep navy velvet dress with long sleeves and a white-piped traditional collar, fastened with a diamond-and-silver floral brooch.

Instead of statement pieces, Peng often wears silver or pearl brooches that nod to the country she's visiting and/or contain a hint of Chinese ethnic handicrafts, such as that of the Miao or Dai ethnic minorities. The design is, as always, in the details.

For the state dinner at the White House on September 24, Peng opted for a patriotic red gown with a rounded neckline, long flared sleeves and a relaxed A-line silhouette, accented by a black velvet clutch and a double strand of pearls. The intensity of the red was softened by the gracefulness of traditional tailoring.

The White House cited the longstanding significance of the color red in Chinese culture, with the East Room itself dressed with symbolic red linens, dahlias and ranunculus (buttercups).

Over the years, shiny Vogue reviews aside, Peng has been hailed by Vanity Fair as one of its best dressed women in the world, listed by Porter Magazine among its 100 Incredible Women highlighting Chinese designers and consistently honored by Forbes as one of the Most Powerful Women in the World.

The First Lady doesn't need a title. She's defined her own style. And it speaks volumes. BR

The author is a Dutch Sinologist and an editorial consultant with Beijing Review 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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