Tina Leung’s apartment is essentially a closet tucked into a high rise in New York’s financial district, though perhaps not in the sense that you’re thinking. (For NYC standards, it’s actually rather sizable.) I mean more so that her closet has taken over her apartment. Floor-to-ceiling shelves line the walls of the entryway and serve as a divider between kitchen and living room. Stacked upon which you’ll find a collection of footwear any proper fashion closet would envy. “I can go naked if you really force me to, but I need to wear shoes,” she says. It’s hard to focus on just one pair, but immediately, my eye caught sight of Loewe’s squashed balloon heels, Prada’s iconic flame sandals, and Bottega Veneta’s signature green hue—coating more than just one pair.
The influencer and Bling Empire: New York star purposefully searched for a one-and-a-half-bedroom apartment—the latter often used, in this city, for office space or a roommate willing to sacrifice livable quarters for feasible rent. That spare room she converted into her actual closet. There, she stores some of her clothes, handbags, and, of course, even more shoes. (This isn't even all of it—the rest sits in a storage unit in Hong Kong). A Comme des Garçons coat fit for a girlier Joan of Arc perches demurely on the end of one roll-in garment rack. The hardware from a row of Hermès Kelly bags glints under the overhead lighting. This sort of collection (and its domination over Leung’s apartment) might perplex the common viewer, but the style maven has cultivated a lifestyle that perpetuates the set-up. Her apartment serves as a crash pad and storage facility for the influencer who has essentially turned international fashion-week-hopping into a career.
“There's nothing like going to a fashion show,” says Leung, recounting Gucci’s takeover of Hollywood Boulevard in November of 2021. “The buzz, the energy beforehand, during, and then afterwards—photos cannot convey. Bryan [Bryanboy] and I were looking at each other with tears in our eyes like, ‘How is this our life?’” She goes on to reminisce about Valentino’s Haute Couture show on Rome’s Spanish Steps, then another Gucci show at a castle in Puglia. “The one at that other castle with the choir, in France. Wow,” she muses, laughing as the shows run together in her memory. “I just feel so lucky to be given these opportunities.
Born in Hong Kong, Leung, 40, moved to California at the age of two, then back again at 11. The flair for the visually eccentric developed early. She notes toying with her prep school uniform, hiking up the skirt and letting the polo hang oversized. It was in university (Leung attended Bates College in Maine then transferred to the University of Bristol) that she started consuming fashion as art. “Every month I was just so excited to run to the newsstands,” she says. “The first thing I would do was flip to the back [of the magazine] where the editorials are. I just wanted to devour them—those really thick ones with mostly editorials like Another Magazine.” It was the element of fantasy, she says, that captivated her.
Leung quick ascertained a styling certificate from FIT post-graduation. After hopping around project-based jobs in the realm of styling, editorial, even visual merchandising in New York and Hong Kong—”I cannot be tied down. I'm a freelance girl”—she launched a blog, Tina Loves, to catalog her industry adventures for her family, composed mostly of lawyers, real estate agents, and investment bankers. The traffic built steadily until one day Dior asked to fly her to Paris to cover their show. “Once I did my first Paris Fashion Week, I was hooked. I've been going ever since,” she says. The budding online personality quickly added Milan to that circuit. New York and London’s fashion weeks followed shortly after. Then, the mens’ weeks, dispatched for GQ China, and haute couture. “At one point, I was basically never home,” she says. Leung has cultivated relationships with the designers and their teams. She’s made friends with fellow front-row attendees, turning the process of being seated into a sort of reunion. “Now, I don't know when I'll ever stop.”
This and more you’ll see in her new reality show Bling Empire: New York on Netflix that captures Leung and a group of wealthy Asian and Asian-Americans galavant about New York City (and the world). The first episode follows Leung to Paris Haute Couture week (fans don't fret—she made it to the Chanel show this haute couture season). The media frenzy outside the show is evident. “Tina! Tina!” photographers yell as their cameras flash. “I sometimes wonder, is that my name that they’re screaming? Or is there another Tina around?” she laughs. This spectacle outside fashion shows wasn’t always the case though. “In 2005, New York Fashion Week, I remember this man, just one, hopping around taking photos. I'm like, ‘Huh.’” He stayed quiet and nonchalantly photographed from afar. “Then, I think back now, and I realize that it was Scott." She’s referring to Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist, who helped to usher in this fascination with street style photography in tandem with the rise of fashion bloggers, better known in 2023 as influencers. Now, Leung stands amidst a swarm of celebrities and influencers having their photo snapped before entering each venue, typically clad in a borrowed look from the designer. “The pure purpose of me attending is to be photographed in that look,” she states matter-of-factly.
Though she’s not always dressed in a head-to-toe runway look, Leung retains that same reverence for the dramatic no matter the ensemble. “Miuccia Prada, Alessandro Michele, Glenn Martens, Jonathan Anderson, Pierpaolo [Picciolo], of course," the sartorial magpie lists the designers she feels capture her style ethos, many of whom she knows personally. “My aesthetic is so different every day, all the time.” The fashion industry favorite is repeatedly drawn to glamour, fantasy, creativity. In her closet, this manifests as pieces like a crystal-embellished gown by friend and fellow "Slaysian" Laura Kim, co-designer at Oscar de la Renta. On her head, it means mermaid green locks, the most recent in a string of bold hair choices. This move definitely plays into her outfit decisions—Leung admits she's been staying away from red lately. “I make sure the whole thing works,” Leung says of her larger than life ensembles. “In my eyes, anyway.”
