A Woman Of The World.(Wendi Murdoch)(Interview)

Byline: Photographed by Mario Testino.

Moving from a provincial Chinese upbringing to being the wife of a media mogul, Wendi Murdoch has perfected the art of raising a global family. Sally Singer reports.

NEW YORK--PARK AVENUE

My first meeting with Wendi Murdoch takes place in the fall of 2007 at her apartment on Park Avenue, which is where the family--she and Rupert and their two girls--has holed up while construction work is undertaken at their permanent new home on Fifth Avenue. Holes, in this context, are relative. "We all live on top of each other," Wendi says with a characteristic little laugh, because she knows better than most how insane such a statement might sound to anyone who doesn't happen to live in a 2,500-plus-square-foot residence: She grew up in mainland China, in an apartment building "with one phone downstairs." It's early evening, and she's wearing Earnest Sewn jeans, a T-shirt by Yigal Azrouel, and Lanvin ballet flats. Chloe (age four) is making dumplings with her Chinese nanny to welcome Dad home from a trip to San Francisco, where he spoke at a new-media conference. Grace (six) is in her Brearley uniform and is practicing on a keyboard in the living room. Then Dad walks in and the girls scream, "Daddy's home!" Not for long, however: There are three events he must go to that evening, and Wendi will accompany him to two of them, a dinner and then a drink with Tony Blair. ("I'm a good wife," she jokes with Rupert. "I got everyone security clearances.") She leads me to her closet, where she shows me her outfit options for that night. En route, we drop by her office nook, where she logs on to her Chinese MySpace page and points out her 67 friends. One of Wendi's jobs is to drive forward MySpace China, which has just launched. (Rupert bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million.) Then, down a long hallway, we walk past Wendi's Gyrotonics machine, which she uses once a week with a trainer, in addition to two kickboxing sessions in the building's gym and the occasional West Village yoga class with friends. She's 39 and in amazing shape. Finally, we pass the girls' bedroom. They have Chinese-English flash cards everywhere, along with the usual clutter of artwork and dolls. What the bedroom is not is an over-the-top princesses' mini-palace. The Murdochs are not great fans of stuff, unless by stuff you mean a boat or a newspaper or a media company or a house. (There are Murdoch homes in New York, Long Island, London, Los Angeles, Carmel, and Beijing, where they're renovating a historic hutong.)

"She's broadened as a person tremendously," says Rupert. "And she's broadened me, too"

Thus Wendi's closet is not "stuffy." "My friends say I have no clothes," she says apologetically. Again, these things are relative, but in terms of Upper East Side moguless wardrobes, she's practically Mother Hubbard. The Blair-which-dress project turns on two resort frocks from Alberta Ferretti, one in pale-gray chiffon, the other in ivory. As we enter the small walk-in, there's a windowpane-check balmacaan by Balenciaga; a green leather jacket from Gucci and another in duchesse satin from Lanvin; blue dresses from Lanvin and Thakoon; silk camisoles in pale nudes by Jean Yu; two chunky cap-sleeve sweaters by Lutz & Patmos; jeans by Earnest Sewn and Earl; and tees from the Gap, ordered online. There's more--a little bit more Lanvin--but not much. "When I first got married," she later tells me, referring to her brief marriage at 20 to a California man soon after she'd arrived in America, "I would buy one nice dress--a black dress--and one pair of shoes. I still have the idea that you wear something and then it gets old and you buy something else."

THE GREAT WALL, SOMEWHERE NEAR BEIJING