I’m sure you still remember the show-stopping look Rihanna wore at the 2015 MET Gala for the China: Through the Looking Glass exhibition. Her golden yellow dress-cape, with a seemingly endless trail, fur details, and rich embroideries was the clear winner of the night — even if the red carpet isn’t officially a competition. It became the most talked-about garment of the year and people on the Internet quickly turned it into a meme. Well, the designer behind that incredibly intricate and memorable piece is Guo Pei, a Chinese couturier. Now, the M+ museum in Hong Kong is honouring her work in Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination, a solo show on view through April 6, 2025.
For over a century and a half, Haute Couture has been synonymous with Paris. However, in recent years the focus has shifted to non-European craftspeople who’re bridging ancient artisanal techniques with the current times. Places like India and China are giving birth to the new badge of couturiers, also thanks to the growing number of insanely rich customers coming from those countries. One of the biggest, most renowned examples is Guo Pei, whose work is praised by clients and cultural institutions worldwide, and who even got a biographic documentary delving into her life and oeuvre titled Yellow Is Forbidden (2018), directed by Pietra Brettkelly.
In Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination, made in close collaboration with the designer and her studio and curated by Ikko Yokoyama, we see the impressive work she’s developed over the last four decades through more than forty pieces. In all of them, the audience can appreciate Pei’s commitment to revitalising Chinese couture craftsmanship and different embroidery techniques, which bridge past and present and help millenary techniques stay alive in a time where digital creation and new technologies are taking over every aspect of society.
Ikko Yokoyama, Lead Curator, Design and Architecture, M+, says: “The exhibition journeys through Guo’s rich universe, charting her profound cultural references, dreamlike designs, supreme craftsmanship, and transcendent creations that have made a deep impact in the worlds of fashion and popular culture. By exhibiting her fantastic collections and career-defining garments alongside works from the M+ Collections, we invite visitors to consider the artistry of fashion design and its associations with contemporary visual culture.”
The exhibit, as Yokoyama highlights, puts works side by side to create new dialogues between fashion and fine arts. Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination is divided into five main themes so we can understand more profoundly her work. The Joy of Life surveys Guo’s collections Garden of Soul (2015) and An Amazing Journey in a Childhood Dream (2007), and we see her fascination with nature combined with memories. In New Tales from the East, the focus turns to Eastern folktales that explore ancient cultural forms and symbols — The Yellow Queen, the dress worn by Rihanna, is exhibited here along with other pieces from the collection 1002 Nights (2009).
In Trascending Space, we see how Guo is inspired by architecture, especially Baroque and Gothic churches, which heavily influenced the collections Legends (2017) and L’Architecture (2018). Ethereal Mythologies explores myths and legends again, only this time it’s the exchange between East and West that becomes the main pillar, which was apparent in collections like Legend of the Dragon (2012) and Elysium (2018). To finish, On Dreams and Reality reveals Guo’s reflections on time and regeneration, which she conveyed through the collections Samsara (2006) and Encounter (2016).
