GQ magazine sent Lauren Greenfield to China for a feature on the newly ultra-rich, a project for which she shot photographs and directed a Web series titled “The Bling Dynasty: China’s Wealthiest 1 Percent.”
“These people [are] not merely wealthy,” writes Devin Friedman, GQ‘s director of editorial projects. “… We’re talking dislocating, alien, dehumanizing amounts of money—the kind of stratospheric wealth that seems inevitably to propel people into a kind of post-geographic realm. At this level of wealth, you’re not really a citizen of Baku or Hamburg or Pacific Palisades or whatever the location of your birth; the only people you have anything meaningful in common with are other people who are also that wealthy, people you meet at the private airports and luxury boutiques and resorts and the better yacht clubs of the world, citizens of a kind of nationless, concierged realm we can call Yachtland.”
Below, some of Lauren’s photos and a link to view her webisodes. See and read more at gq.com.
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Norman, a teenager from Beijing, believes polo helps his “manners and bravery.” Photo by Lauren Greenfield. Caption courtesy GQ.
Two women help market an herbal tincture at So! Dalian. Photo by Lauren Greenfield. Caption courtesy GQ.
We know you’re here to look at yachts. But how about an Aston Martin? Photo by Lauren Greenfield. Caption courtesy GQ.
The rich, the Chinese are being taught, enjoy their polo on the beach—even if it takes trucking in sand. Photo by Lauren Greenfield. Caption courtesy GQ.
Click to view the Web series “The Bling Dynasty: China’s Wealthiest 1 Percent,” directed by Lauren Greenfield.
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