CNN - Asian beauty makes tracks on the fashion runway

Asian beauty makes tracks on the fashion runway

July 3, 1996
Web posted at: 4:10 p.m. EDT

From Style Correspondent Elsa Klensch

(CNN) -- A career in fashion was all 20-year-old Malaysian model Ling ever wanted. As a girl, she planned to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a fine tailor.

Fashion it was, but instead of sewing behind the scenes like her mother, she has made her career on the runway. (400K QuickTime movie)

Ling began modeling in her Malaysian home of Kuala Lumpur when she was only 17. She moved to New York a year ago and has been working steadily with well-known fashion photographers and designers ever since.

It's easy to see why Ling is a rising star in the modeling world. She is 5 feet 10 inches tall, slender with shiny, dark hair, high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes.

She credits her exotic looks to her Chinese heritage, but she has now become a woman of the world.

"I speak Chinese, English, Malay," she says. "I hope I can learn French and Italian because of the jobs."

The sooner the better. In the coming months, Ling will be spending more time in Paris "to get more experience in front of the camera," she says.

There should be no lack of opportunity. Photographers and designers alike are taken with Ling's Asian allure. But, she says, she does have one drawback.

"The designers always complain that I'm too skinny."

Ah, the travails of the fashion model.

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Asian beauty makes tracks on the fashion runway

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