DU JUAN, 28

The Shanghainese made her runway debut in September 2005. The following month, she landed the cover of French Vogue with Australian model Gemma Ward and remains the only Asian model to have done so.

She scored a slew of major ad campaigns in 2006 for the likes of Yves Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton. Style.com also crowned her one of the top 10 models for the fall/winter 2006 season.

For spring/summer 2010, she closed Vivienne Tam's show in New York and worked the runway for Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, Zac Posen and Jason Wu.

The 1.8m former Miss China now splits her time between New York and China.

This article was first published in Urban, The Straits Times.