Cool diplomacy

Beijing-based diplomat Julian Ruiz Zanora is a dedicated follower of the fashion industry. The trade officer at the Spanish Embassy's goods and consumers department is busy behind the scenes helping his nation's clothing brands break into the growing Chinese market.

But recently the good-looking young Spaniard was thrust into the spotlight.

He was one of seven super cool diplomats who strutted on the catwalk at the recent 2009 China International Fashion Week show.

The fashion show gave 600 attendees the chance to see members of Beijing's diplomatic community in a different light - or at least some different clothes.

The embassy staff, representing Spain, Senegal, Morocco, Italy, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and France, donned men's casual wear made by Fujian province-based Septwolves.

Zanora says his modeling experience added a new dimension to his career. "There were a lot of cameras, a lot of people, you're wearing nice clothes the feeling's great," he says.

Organizer Iris Hou says the show represented a cultural exchange.

Third Secretary of the Pakistani Embassy in Beijing Asif Than says models and diplomats are cut from the same cloth in more ways than most people would think.

"It's a sort of projection," the 33-year-old says.

"As a model you project a certain outfit to people. As a diplomat, you present your country to people it's all about people-to-people contact."

He was surprised when he was asked to participate, because he had never heard of such a concept before.

"I think it's a really different idea and a good way to introduce one's culture to people."

If nothing else, he says, it was a welcome break from his busy schedule of coordinating between the government agencies of his homeland and China, and his intensive Chinese-language study at China Foreign Affairs University.

For Ruiz Zanora, switching the formal suits he wears in his diplomatic life for fashion show attire also meant he got to put the shoe on the other foot and just be himself on stage.

"I tried to do it in a more natural way," he says.

"It had nothing to do with my job, and I didn't think about diplomatic stuff. I was just walking the catwalk, and that was it."

Saliou Sall, the Senegalese Embassy in Beijing's second secretary, assistant to the ambassador and chief of protocol, often works more than 10 hours a day.

The catwalk experience allowed him to relax and take off his diplomatic hats for a moment.

"I just felt like a model and forgot I was a diplomat," he says.

"The two things are very different: Being a model wasn't that tough, and it took a short time."

The 59-year-old diplomat was chosen from among the embassy's 10 staff members because of his physique, height and reputation for fashion consciousness.

Sall says he's known to be particular about the style and color-blends of his suits.

His ensures his suits are made by the best tailors from all over the world (in the countries in which he has served) and flown to wherever he's working.

"I don't follow what's going on, but I chose my own style," he says.

He describes his taste for attire as something that's "for both young and old, clean and common to what's used for official ceremonies".

Yassine Farahat, the 18-year-old son of the Moroccan Embassy's minister-counselor, describes his typical offstage garb as "hip-hop" or "classic".

Clad in a knit-sleeved white hooded jacket and the T-Shirt of African French rap group Mafia K'1 Fry, the high school student explains that his homeland's 45-year-old king is a big influence on his stylistic sensibilities.

"The king of Morocco is a young man, and we love the way he dresses It influences the way a lot of young people dress," he says.

But while the clothes he wore for his Fashion Week gig in Beijing might not be his usual attire, he says he still enjoyed it immensely.

"I was very excited," he says.

"I'd be happy to do another one."

(China Daily 04/06/2009 page10)