Chuando Tan (from left) during his modelling heyday in 1993, in a photo shoot when he was 34 in 2001 and a selfie taken recently at the age of 50. PHOTOS: CHUANDO, GEOFF ANG, FACEBOOK via The Straits Times/Asia News Network
SINGAPORE — Local model-turned-photographer Chuando Tan set social media on fire over the weekend, thanks to an article in Chinese news website Yidian Zixun on Saturday (July 22).
The reason for all the brouhaha?
Tan – better known as CD to his friends and within fashion circles – is 50, but boasts looks – as well as the enviable buffed physique – of a 20-year-old.
One of Singapore’s most sought-after models in his heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Tan had a short-lived career as a Mandarin pop singer before reinventing himself as a celebrity photographer in 1996.
He also owns a modelling agency.
Breaking into fashion photography was not easy, he admitted in an interview with The Straits Times in 2001.
But he has since gone on to shoot Asian stars such as actresses Shu Qi and Rosamund Kwan, with his work featured on the covers and fashion spreads of international magazines such as Jalouse, Muse, L’Officiel, Elle and Harper’s Bazaar.
His photography firm ChuanDo & Frey – which he started with good friend Frey Ow in 2006 – was picked by US singer Janet Jackson to shoot the album cover of her 2008 album Discipline.
The 1.85m-tall Tan, who admitted that he was extremely health-conscious when he was modelling, shared several tips to keep fit and stay youthful in a 1993 ST article.
He would shun late nights, avoid baths late at night or early in the morning and eat chicken breast meat – cooked Hainanese chicken-rice style – every day. He also worked out four times a week and swam regularly.
Even at the age of 39, he was still praised in an article for “having a tawny complexion that Narcissus would gladly drown for and the masculine frame of a Marvel comics superhero”.