Gok Wan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gok Wan
Gok Wan
Born	October 9, 1974 (1974-10-09) (age 33)^[1] Leicester, UK
Nationality	British
Occupation	Fashion stylist, television presenter
Known for	How to Look Good Naked

Gok Wan (born Ko-Hen Wan^{[citation needed]}) meaning "Noisy Big City" in Chinese (born 9 October 1974, Leicester, England, U.K.^[1]) is a British fashion consultant, author and television presenter of Anglo-Chinese heritage.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Personal life
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early life

After receiving a diploma in performing arts at the Charles Keene College of Further Education, Leicester, Wan enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama to study Drama and Education, although he did not complete the course. Following that, he began working as a session hair and make-up artist and soon after moved into fashion styling. He was 21 stone (133 kg) in his teenage years he confessed, "I was really fat".^[2] It was not until his late teens that he started slimming.

[edit] Career

Over the last 10 years Gok has worked with many personalities and musicians including Bryan Ferry, All Saints, Damien Lewis, Erasure, Vanessa Mae, Wade Robson, Lauren Laverne, Wet Wet Wet, and Johnny Vaughan. His work has been published internationally in several magazines, which include Tatler, Glamour, Times Style, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, The Face, Afisha Mir, Clash and People. He has also worked with photographers such as Rankin, Mike Owen and Jason Joyce.

Gok has also worked as an "on-screen" fashion consultant on many television shows including: MTV Shakedown (MTV Europe), GMTV (ITV), LK Today (ITV), Big Brother's Little Brother (Channel 4), Battle of the Sexes (BBC1), The Wright Stuff (Channel 5), Make Me a Grown Up (Channel 4/T4), The Xtra Factor (ITV2) and T4 (Channel 4).

In 2006, Gok was approached by Channel 4 and asked to present his own fashion show, How to Look Good Naked. In addition, he wrote a book to accompany the series, entitled How to Look Good Naked: Shop for Your Shape and Look Amazing!, that was published in April 2007. A second series was commissioned and aired on Channel4 in early summer 2007. Along with the second series, he appeared on The New Paul O'Grady Show, in which he persuaded Paul O'Grady to "strip naked". A third series is currently airing on Channel 4.

On 25 April 2008 Gok was the guest presenter on The Friday Night Project.

[edit] Personal life

Gok Wan lives in London and is openly gay.^[3] He mentioned this on the June 29, 2007, on Channel 4 UK's show 8 out of 10 cats "I would do Tony Blair" - although stating that both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are "mingers". Whilst guest presenting The Friday Night Project Gok made several sexual references to co-host Alan Carr, and admitted his New Year resolution for 2008 was to "find a husband".

His elder brother, Kwoklyn Wan, is an accomplished martial artist and teaches Jeet Kune Do at the Urban Martial Arts Academy based in Leicester^[4]. His younger brother Tony Wan, is currently studying for a degree in International Business Management at Manchester Metropolitan University.