David Beckham has hardly kicked a ball for Real Madrid this season and Faye Wong's popularity peaked in the late 1990s, but this has not stopped them being chosen as "Trendiest Man and Woman" by Chinese people in a recent survey.

The survey, conducted by Cosmopolitan magazine and the Horizon Research Consultancy Group, interviewed over 1,300 people in nine major cities.

The majority of respondents said that pop stars and sports figures were the two most fashionable groups.

"This survey examined for the first time what fashion is from the perspective of mass consumers," a source from Horizon said. "The survey is different from previous ones in which experts told the masses what is in fashion," the source added.

Other findings from the survey included Paris being considered the world's top fashion city by 58.9 per cent of respondents. Shanghai was rated China's fashion centre.

Blogs were considered the "coolest" modern communication medium, but magazines remained popular and the chief source of fashion information.

The survey results drew mixed reactions. "Faye Wong is past her best. Angela Zhang and Jennifer Aniston are much more representative of fashion among my friends," said an office worker in Beijing.

Liu Yuanyuan, 24, a translator in Nanjing, said: "This survey does not represent the overall opinions of different social groups. Most respondents were in their 30s, so they only voted for stars their age. People who are teenagers now will have different icons. I like Kaka, AC Milan's Brazilian football star!"