(CNN) -- Four years ago Liu Wen entered a modeling contest in China to win a computer to use for school. Little did she know it would lead her to the Victoria's Secret runway in New York. 
 
 Wen, who will appear in the Victoria's Secret fashion show airing Tuesday on CBS, will be the first Victoria's Secret model of Asian descent to walk the catwalk, the company said. 
 
 "I was surprised when my agent told me," Wen said hours before she was set to walk the runway. She seemed only slightly overwhelmed: clad in a pink robe, one technician assigned to her fingernails, another to her toenails and another adding extensions to her already long black hair. "I asked my agent if she was joking. I didn't think an Asian girl would get this job." 
 
 Victoria's Secret plucked Wen, 21, out of a regular model casting call. 
 
 "Liu Wen is a beautiful woman. She has a strong and energetic presence on the runway. She looked absolutely stunning in our fashion show," said the show's executive producer, Monica Mitro. 
 
 At 5-foot-10, Wen said she towered over her classmates in China. 
 
 The newest addition to the Victoria's Secret family was born in Yongzhou in China's Hunan province in 1988, the daughter of an interior designer dad and a stay-at-home mom. 
 
 She was in high school when, on a whim, she submitted photos for a modeling contest, hoping to win the top prize of a laptop computer. 
 
 "I was studying to be a teacher in China and my friend was entering a modeling contest," she said. "The prize was a computer, and I needed a computer for school. So I entered the contest, too, and then I won." 
 
 Her family and friends, including the one who originally had the idea to enter the contest, were shocked. 
 
 "My friends were all surprised," she said. "They were all like, 'sure, you're pretty.' " 
 
 Soon Wen had moved from Yongzhou to the Chinese capital of Beijing, where she appeared on the covers of Chinese editions of FHM and Marie Claire, as well as in editorials for Chinese Vogue. In 2008 she landed on the cover of Chinese Elle alongside fellow rising star Emma Pei. 
 
 Wen made her runway debut in Milan, Italy, in 2008, followed quickly by Paris, France, and New York fashion weeks where she walked in such shows as Anna Sui, Dolce & Gabbana, Alexander McQueen, Chloé and Lanvin. 
 
 Although her walk down the runway will be a first for Victoria's Secret, Wen is part of a growing trend for Asian models worldwide that began several years ago with Devon Aoki. The past few seasons of fashion shows have featured Asian models on almost every high-end runway. 
 
 "I talk to my mom in China every day when I am traveling. My family is always excited to hear about the top designers I am meeting and the clothes I get to wear," Wen said. 
 
 She said was familiar with the Victoria's Secret show, though being on the inside was something new. 
 
 "Of course I had seen the show on television. I watched it every year," Wen said. "But it was so different when I got here and got to meet the other girls. I got to meet Heidi Klum for the first time after I had known about her for so long. And she was so nice." 
 
 Wen thinks she may try her hand at acting when she has gotten over the modeling bug, but she said she would be just as happy returning to China to be a teacher like she originally planned. 
 
 "In the classroom everyone respects the teacher. The teacher has all the control and has the ability to shape all of her students' lives," Wen said. "But for now modeling is such great fun. I'm still trying out new sexy faces." ||||| 
 
 Scroll down to se backstage video from the show. 
 
 Victoria's Secret Angels strut runway in $3 million bras, 100 pounds of glitter 
 
 Clary/Getty Supermodel Selita Ebanks gets hair and makeup work backstage at Victoria’s Secret show. 
 
 When the Victoria's Secret Angels strut the runway Tuesday in $3 million bras, larger-than-life wings and barely there lingerie, what viewers won't see are the countless hours of work that goes into making the most beautiful women in the world look so ethereally sexy. 
 
 The show, airing on CBS at 10, was shot at the Lexington Armory. 
 
 "It's all about creating the illusion of this amazing body on the runway," says Selita Ebanks, who walked her first Armory show five years ago. "People don't realize that there are about 20 layers of makeup on my butt alone." 
 
 In addition to body makeup, which Ebanks estimates takes well over an hour to apply, the Angels prep in hair and makeup for three to five hours before hitting the runway, with an average of five people - hair stylists, makeup artists and manicurists, working on each of the 38 models. 
 
 And if the hours of makeup, laboriously applied hair extensions and 100 pounds of body glitter (worn collectively) weren't enough, the models are then squeezed into some of the most intricate garments imaginable. 
 
 Ebanks' first look on the 140-foot-long runway is a gold lightning bolt strapped lengthwise across her middle. Think supersized Christmas tinsel weighing 30 pounds, and with dangerously sharp points. 
 
 "They added a 15-pound sandbag to my hip so the points wouldn't scrape my thighs when I walked, and there was a metal rod in it," says Ebanks. "When I first came out and cut that corner, my whole body tilted to the side and I thought, 'Oh my God, if I fall in this thing, forget my ego, my body is going to be jacked up.'" 
 
 But Ebanks made it work, repeating the mantra "I'm fierce" over and over in her head. 
 
 "I called it my stark-kichu" after the Japanese cartoon, says Ebanks. "It was part of the Star Trooper segment of the show, and I felt like I was the cosmic star leading the girls to a sexy galaxy." 
 
 Other out-of-this-world items featured Tuesday include Marisa Miller's $3 million bra dripping in diamonds and Candice Swanepoel's wings made out of oversized pocket watches. 
 
 Ebanks, daughter of a New York City corrections officer and alum of Curtis High School on Staten Island, was glad to have the show back in her hometown. 
 
 "New Yorkers really appreciate a good production, and amazing people came out to support the show," says Ebanks. 
 
 Supermodel Heidi Klum, who makes a surprise trip down the runway, and gave birth to her daughter Lou just weeks before the taping of the show, agrees. 
 
 "New Yorkers scream loud when you come out," says Klum, who also hosts the show. "In other places, people tend to be a little more quiet, so it's fun to have the New York crowd."
– The Victoria's Secret fashion show airs tonight, and the New York Daily News is here to tell you that—believe it or not—getting into those $3 million bras and humongous angel wings isn't as easy as it looks. "People don't realize that there are about 20 layers of makeup on my butt alone," says one model, adding that one of her "looks," a 30-pound lightning bolt with sharp edges, required adding a 15-pound sandbag on her hips. The 38 models spend three to five hours getting hair and makeup done—at the hands of five stylists each. One of the models using her share of the 100 pounds of body glitter on hand is Liu Wen, Victoria's Secret's first Asian model. The 21-year-old entered a modeling contest in her native China four years ago, trying to win a computer, and was plucked from a casting call by the Angels. "Of course I had seen the show on television. I watched it every year," she tells CNN. "But it was so different when I got here and got to meet the other girls."