Stills OF ALEXANDRA AGOSTON AND ANH DUONG FOR KAILIS
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June 9, 2017New York, USA

How I came to be Margaret while my kid brother ended up with a boss-ass name like Major Zhang (yes, that is his real name; yes he is much cooler than I) is a short and unremarkable tale. Major’s Chinese name is 章权 (zhāng quán). In the most literal sense, the first character (our surname) relates to books, chapters, officiating stamps and seals, and in the right context, octopus – otherwise known as my favourite emoji. 权 means power. Ergo, Major Zhang and a beautiful existence of being a bonafide homie.

Meanwhile the latter of my motherland moniker in 章凝 (zhāng níng) translates to something in the realm of coagulation, condensation, cohesion, and other similarly charming terms of endearment and/or insignias of breathtaking beauty. You (by which I mean my parents) might take some

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figurative liberties to arrive at an English equivalent of say… precipitation of knowledge… with a vague footnote referencing the ocean.

A pearl of wisdom, you might say. I would indulge that with ba doom tsh, but I’m not even joking when I say that Mama and Ba Zhang looked up eponymous synonyms to “Pearl” in a name dictionary, and destined me to a life of great posture and Little Britain witticisms.

If I had been a boy, I was to be called Malcolm – disciple of Saint Columba, slayer of Macbeth.

I’m just going to leave that one there.

Cue visual segue into my subconscious personal affinities to this pearl campaign I shot slash directed for Kailis one rainy day in Brooklyn.

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Jest aside, Anh and Alexandra really are such dream women for me to have shot. Both are such focused individuals with open minds to the shifting shapes of art and culture, without compromising their own perspectives and sense of self. Both know their faces and bodies so well, which (need I say it again) makes for smooth sailing on a set like this with loopy creatives like yours truly, throwing out garbled instructions on body contortion and the ideological reasons as to why your face might be buried in your pearl-adorned hands.

Once in a while (truly – only once in a while), a shoot will manifest exactly as you’d visualised. And of these rare instances, it can almost always be attributed to perfect set chemistry.

Thank you team for this glorious day.

view the full campaign at Kailis

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PHOTOGRAPHY & STYLING // MARGARET ZHANG

HAIR // TAKUYA SUGAWARA

MAKE UP // KATIE HUGHES

CINEMATOGRAPHY // DAISY ZHOU

MODELS // ALEXANDRA AGOSTON + ANH DUONG @ IMG

PRODUCER // SAMANTHA BENNETTS

PHOTO ASSIST // ADAM MANTELL

DIGITAL OPERATOR // SEAN GREENE

STYLING ASSIST// EMMA SOUSA

About

Margaret Zhang 章凝 is an Australian-born-Chinese filmmaker, photographer, consultant and writer based between New York and Shanghai. Since establishing her website in 2009, Zhang has gone on to work with global brands including CHANEL, Swarovski, YEEZY, Bulgari, Gucci, MATCHES, Under Armour, and Louis Vuitton in a wide range of capacities both in front of and behind the camera, while completing her Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Laws at The University of Sydney. Zhang’s directing, photography, and styling has been employed by the likes of VOGUE, L’Officiel, Harper’s BAZAAR, NOWNESS, and ELLE internationally. She has been listed in Forbes Asia’s 30Under30 and TimeOut’s 40Under40, and her work has been recognized as shaping the international fashion industry by the Business of Fashion BoF500 Index for four consecutive years. CNN has identified Zhang as a leading fashion photographer in Asia and ELLE named her the region’s most influential digital voice. She went on to be the first Asian face to cover ELLE Australia. In 2016, she co-founded BACKGROUND, a global consultancy for which she specialises in Western-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-Western cultural bridging for a range of luxury, lifestyle, and brand initiatives. In 2017, she exhibited a series of 39 unseen photographic works as a solo show in Sydney, and premiered her first short film – a 15-minute exploration of her visceral relationship with classical music on both performance and abstract planes – to critical acclaim. In 2018, co-curated the first annual FOREFRONT Summit focused on inter-industry problem-solving at all scales of business. From this king summit, Zhang developed FOREFRONT+ – a round table series of candid conversations covering subject matters of universal concern. In 2019, THE FACE Magazine engaged Zhang as Creative-Director-at-Large for Asia for its relaunch. Zhang is currently working on her first feature film.