If you were at Paris Haute Couture Week and did a double take at the nearly-60 model holding her own in Chanel’s most romantic show in years, you weren’t alone. Christina Chung, the Hong Kong model who didn’t book her first real fashion job until she was 56, has quietly become one of the most compelling faces in Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel era, proving that “too late” was never a real deadline. Here’s everything to know about the woman turning the industry’s obsession with youth on its head.

1. She didn’t start modelling until she was 56

While most models are already retiring by their late 20s, Chung was just getting started. She’d dabbled in a few ad shoots at 18, then spent decades building a career in banking and human resources instead. The runway had to wait its turn.

2. She’s the mother of seven daughters, some of whom are also models

Seven daughters is a lot of school runs. It’s also, apparently, a great pipeline into fashion. One of Chung’s daughters was already modelling when the two did a Mother’s Day shoot together, and it was that campaign that got Christina noticed in her own right. 

3. She’s one of eight siblings herself

Long before she was raising a household of daughters, Chung was growing up in one. Born in 1966, she was the fifth of eight children (four boys, four girls) in a Chiu Chow family that had settled in Hong Kong in the late 1940s. As the youngest daughter, she’s said her worth wasn’t exactly a given in a household that prized its sons.

4. Her agency signed her off the back of that one Mother’s day shoot