Doco on Shandong Farmer-Turned-Fashionista Fairy Wang at French Cultural Centre Tonight

'Fairy Wang,’ otherwise known as Wang Shou-Ying, first soared to fame on Weibo in 2014 when she posted a series of selfies in which she posed in bizarre homemade hats and costumes.

Wang, who calls herself a “farmer who likes design,” uses everything from leaves, onions, and waste paper to mimic the chicest designs from the catwalks of Europe. 

Not long after Fairy became an overnight internet celebrity, filmmaker Rongfei Guo befriended her and even walked in the unlikely designer’s very first fashion show.

Guo shot a short documentary of the whole bizarre experience and it’s screening tonight (Aug 30), 7-8pm at the French Cultural Centre, organized by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China.

There will be a Q&A session with Guo after the screening of Fairy Tales for which she won the Best Short Documentary Film award at Melbourne International Film Festival and Best Student Film at DOC NYC.

This was the  Melbourne International Film Festival’s jury statement: 

“Fairy Tales deals with media and the fashion industry’s commodification of that rarest of talents – a true original working in isolation, producing outsider art. Yet it does this with great nuance, depth and genuine heart; and without being didactic or saccharine. While the narrative impetus of the film is character-driven (focusing on the charming ‘Fairy’) it also encompasses wider issues of class, culture, race, gender, the role of social media and the value of creativity in a contemporary society driven by market values.”

The film will be shown in English with Chinese subtitles and is free for members, or RMB 100 at the door for non-members. To register, click here.

Photos: Vimeo, Fairy Wang (Weibo), Daily Mail, refashionunique.wordpress.com