Liu Wen. Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

Out of the 1.3 billion people in China, Liu Wen is the first supermodel. She got her start by submitting photos to an online model-casting call in hopes of winning a computer, the grand prize. But she wound up with a lot more than a computer: She became the first model of Asian descent to walk in a Victoria’s Secret show, and has graced international beauty ads as the first Asian global spokesmodel for Estée Lauder. In town to promote the brand’s new Advanced Night Repair Concentrated Recovery PowerFoil Mask, she talked to the Cut about how she’s not perceived as traditionally beautiful in China, how she’s seen the perception of Asian beauty change, and how her skin-care routine is “not easy at all.”

It’s been six years since Estée Lauder named you an Asian spokesperson. How do you feel like your relationship to beauty and the Asian perception of beauty has changed?

Before I modeled, I never thought I was beautiful. Even right now, I don’t think I’m beautiful. I think it’s my personality that makes my beauty different and unique. If you look in the past, Chinese people have always considered things like big eyes, pointy nose, or big lips beautiful. I had the same thoughts as a child watching movies.

But as you grow up, you understand more about what beauty is. It’s not just about the outside. Your look changes depending on your confidence, and then your beauty changes. When I first came to New York all the people were saying “You look so Asian, because you have a different eye shape.” They didn’t really understand because they didn’t really see that many Asian models.

But now, there are more and more Asian models and opportunities to understand Asian beauty. For example, before, people would put me in red lips because they thought it looked Chinese. But now, they put a lot of red lipstick on Asian models because our skin tone is different than the Caucasian one and they see that it suits us. Asia isn’t just about red.