Who is Ming Xi, the Chinese Victoria's Secret Angel who came home last night?

Ming Xi came back to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show last night in Los Angeles, eight years after she last wore the wings. The taping was at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. She walked twice: first in a floral corset with gauzy wings and sleeves, then in all-pink lace.

This morning she posted that it felt "almost surreal, yet deeply familiar, like returning home." Seeing the wings nearly stopped her heart, she wrote. Her husband, Mario Ho, called her the pride of the family and "a real life angel."

For anyone who mostly knows the name from a clip or a wedding photo, she is Xi Mengyao, from Shanghai, 5'10", with training in acting and fashion design at Donghua University. Liu Wen was the first Asian model Victoria's Secret put on that runway, in 2009. Ming is the Chinese Angel a lot of people grew up watching after that: six shows from 2013 through 2018, then a Greater China ambassadorship alongside Sui He for the 2018 edition.

Before the wings

Her international break was Givenchy haute couture in 2011, after Elite Model Look, with a Givenchy campaign in the same stretch. Chanel, Dior, Balmain, Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, and Fendi followed.

Karl Lagerfeld cast her in his "KARL is KOLOR" campaign with Kendall Jenner and Sasha Luss. Michael Kors put her on a Shanghai stage with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Miranda Kerr. She has been a Vogue China regular for years, including a 20th-anniversary cover in 2025. Biotherm made her a face. Stuart Weitzman named her a global ambassador in 2024 next to Lucy Liu, Christy Turlington, Issa Rae, and Aly Raisman.

The lingerie show made her famous to people who do not follow couture weeks. The houses already had her on speed dial.

Last night

Her last VS walk was 2018, right before she married Ho in 2019. They have a son, Ronaldo, and a daughter, Romee, who turns five next month. Eight years away makes more sense once you remember the kids, and how quiet the brand's big show got for a stretch.

When she returned last night, Liu Wen was on the same runway. So was He Cong, who debuted in the 2024 revival, and Ravleen Varghese, walking VS for the first time. KATSEYE performed in the PINK segment. She came back into a cast that already had company.

Plenty of people still flash back to Shanghai 2017, when her cape caught and she fell on home turf, then got up and finished. She later called it one of the hardest moments of her career. Last night was a softer memory: same brand, same wings, a mother of two saying it felt like home.

The longer wait

Victoria's Secret treated Asian models as rare for a long time. Liu Wen's 2009 walk made headlines because the company itself called her the first of Asian descent. Sui He arrived in 2011. Ming arrived in 2013. It took until 2016 for four Chinese models to share one night, and until Shanghai 2017 for seven. Then the show itself went quiet for years.

Outside that arena, the numbers were thin too. For Fall 2013, about 9 percent of major fashion-week castings were Asian, while more than 80 percent were white. By Spring/Summer 2017, Fashion Spot counted Asian models at roughly 7 percent across New York, London, Paris, and Milan. Chrissy Teigen said that year what a lot of diaspora readers already felt: Asian models were underrepresented on runways and in magazines. Casting has opened since. East and South Asian faces still get treated like a special booking more often than they should.

Our take: last night was a homecoming for someone who earned the Angel title the long way, couture first. If you only knew her from the fall or from Mario's posts, the fuller picture is warmer. She was a working supermodel the houses kept calling, in a decade when that was still unusual.