Last year's net gains

Rustic style

In March, Lu Kaigang, a 20-year-old villager from Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region's Nanning city posted a video on Douyin, in which he struts like a model wearing a dress made from fishnets.

He then filmed dozens of similar videos showing how he channels his "inner diva", moving in tempo under a stone bridge, across a narrow alley, in a derelict factory, down mossy steps and through the ridges and furrows of fields.

He turned the countryside into his runway and made fashionable outfits and accessories from readily available materials, including bamboo sticks, reeds and plastic bags.

Although he never had professional training, Lu Xianren, as he is also known, nailed the supermodel walk from studying models as a child, by watching fashion shows on TV.

His countryside homage to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show gained him more than 3 million followers on Douyin.

Lu, a former employee at a local food manufacturer, used to ask his co-workers to help him film videos after work. Now he has talent agents to support him to plan for a future career as a rising model. He started to pose for magazines, meet media outlets and grace real runways alongside professional models at domestic and overseas fashion shows.

On Dec 18, he was invited to the 16th Esquire Man at His Best Award ceremony held by Esquire magazine in Beijing. He says one of the most exciting parts of attending the event was that he got to meet his idol He Sui, a renowned Chinese supermodel.