When we first interviewed Jaime Xie in early 2020 – pre-Covid and pre-Bling Empire , the Netflix reality show about crazy rich Asians in Los Angeles – she was a stylish 20-something trying to make her mark on the fashion industry.
The daughter of tech entrepreneur Ken Xie , Xie grew up in the wealthy town of Atherton, in the US state of California, riding horses with the likes of Eve Jobs – the daughter of the late Apple founder Steve Jobs – and living a quiet suburban life.
Xie only appeared in a few episodes of the first season of the hit show, but she quickly stood out for her stylish get-ups.
Unlike her fellow cast members who didn’t shy away from professing their love for big labels and big logos, Xie did her own thing, always looking on point without coming across as a fashion victim.
Xie in a floral-print sculpted neoprene minidress from a Balenciaga 2008 collection. PHOTO: Instagram
Her love for fashion started at a young age, she says when we meet her in Los Angeles, where she is now based.
“When I was riding horses, I knew I loved fashion and used to play with my mum’s clothes,” she says. “I had to wear uniforms in school, but we had free-dress days and on those days I would go crazy. The school hallways were my runway.”
While Xie admits that “fashion and reality shows don’t really go together”, she can’t deny the huge exposure that Bling Empire has given her. “It helped open more doors for me and gave me a bigger platform to reach a wider audience,” she says.
That audience, which mainly consists of her Instagram followers, loves to look at Xie’s directional and fashion-forward outfits, which are the definition of statement pieces.
“You’ll never really see me in something basic and not noticeable at an event,” she says. “It has to be special. I bought so many pieces like that during Covid-19 and couldn’t wait to wear them and I finally did when we started filming season two.”
Some of those purchases were one-of-a-kind vintage looks that Xie started to collect with the help of Law Roach, one of Hollywood’s most respected stylists and the man behind US actress Zendaya’s stunning red-carpet looks .
Xie had never worked with a stylist before – she says that she loves styling herself – but after meeting Roach during Milan Fashion Week, the two hit it off.
“I started working with Law for the Venice Film Festival in 2021,” she says. “I liked his energy and he mentioned vintage to me and I wanted to explore that more.”
Before making it big as a Hollywood stylist, Roach had a vintage shop in his native Chicago, which gave him access to many vintage dealers.
“He taught me a lot about fashion history and why certain pieces are important and helped me find rare and cool things,” Xie says. “Before, I would just browse on eBay and didn’t know why some pieces were significant. I have been building up a collection of vintage and it’s been a fun journey.”
Xie, unlike other vintage collectors who keep their finds in pristine condition in their wardrobes, embraces vintage wholeheartedly and has been killing it on the red carpet with one iconic outfit after another.
At the British Fashion Awards in London in December 2021, she stole the show in a Roberto Cavalli gown in a Chinoiserie print, from the Italian designer’s autumn/winter 2005/2006 collection. That dress was famously on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the “China: Through the Looking Glass” exhibition in 2015.
At a recent Louis Vuitton show in Paris, she paid homage to Nicolas Ghesquière, the brand’s artistic director, with a floral-print sculpted neoprene minidress he had designed for Balenciaga in 2008.
Roach normally styles Xie for big events but she picked all her own outfits for season two of Bling Empire , which she says was a lot of fun to be part of.
“I wasn’t very involved in season one because I was out of town most of the time for fashion week, but in season two they put [fellow cast member] Anna and me together and we had so much fun doing silly and crazy things,” she says.
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“I get along with Anna the best, and we hang out outside the show. The other cast members, I’m not really a fan of some of them and their vibes. Kim [Lee] is fun and [former Rich Kids of Beverly Hills cast member] Dorothy Wang joined the cast and has great energy and is really straightforward and honest and has the best one-liners.”
You can expect more exciting fashion moments from Xie but she’s also thinking of branching out and exploring new ventures.
As a vegan and someone who suffers from coeliac, she follows a gluten-free diet but has a sweet tooth. Her goal is to eventually launch a line of vegan, gluten-free desserts “that are good for you and also taste good, not like garbage”.
But fashion, Xie says with visible enthusiasm, “is always going to be part of whatever I do because I just love it”.
This article was first published in South China Morning Post.
