The actress and former beauty queen, who recently designed a stunning jewellery collection for charity, spoke with Tatler about growing up in the spotlight, the importance of family and staying true to yourself
Model, actress and living legend of the Hong Kong silver screen, Michele Reis, has many strings to her bow, and she’s just added another—jewellery designer.
Michele just launched her first collection with jewellery brand Peonia Diamond, which includes a handcrafted panda pendant in white gold set with almost 1,000 white and black diamonds. The collaboration—the Michele x iPANDAS Peonia Diamond Charity Jewellery Collection—was conceived to help fund the JMJ Children’s Charitable Foundation, which Michele founded with her husband, Julian Hui, to support the education of underprivileged children in Hong Kong and the southwest of Mainland China.
We sat down with Michele to talk about the collection and why she left the entertainment world behind to put her family first:
Why did you choose pandas as a motif in your jewellery line?
My six-year-old son Jayden loves pandas, so I thought why not create a line he could get curious about? And he has. He keeps asking how this little sparkly figurine can help children, and what the charity does.
See also: 5 Tips For Collecting Heritage Jewellery, According To A Certified Gemologist
You won Miss Hong Kong and Miss Chinese International beauty pageant when you were only 18, and went on to star in many movies, which made you a favourite subject in the glossies and gossip magazines. Did the limelight ever feel too much?
When I was younger, it used to be quite overwhelming. I was only a teenager when I started out, so I didn’t really know how the industry works. But I learned to become unfazed by it. You have to if you want to survive in the sector.
