Guo Pei, Creator of Rihanna’s Met Gala Gown, Is Ready for Paris
PARIS — Until nine months ago, Guo Pei was a Chinese haute couturière known by millions in the East yet virtually unheard-of in the West. That all changed last May when the pop star Rihanna wore one of Ms. Guo’s designs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute gala in New York, after finding her work on the Internet. The look in question, a 55-pound canary-yellow fur-trimmed gown and cape, took seamstresses 50,000 hours and more than two years to make and landed on the cover of American Vogue — and Ms. Guo on the haute couture schedule in Paris.
On Wednesday, the 48-year-old former children’s wear designer and daughter of an army platoon leader will formally present her collection for the first time at a major fashion week.
“The Met Ball marked a new start for my business, a brand new chapter that secretly I felt had been coming for years,” she said on Sunday, 5,000 miles from her Beijing headquarters in a tiny, all-white Paris showroom off the Rue St.-Honoré. “I knew there just needed to be a tipping moment to take me into a whole new world.”Photo
Rihanna at the Met Gala last May, wearing an elaborate cape and gown designed by Guo Pei.Credit
Josh Haner/The New York Times
In the two decades since the 1997 opening of Rose Studio, her fashion company specializing in evening wear, Ms. Guo has found fame in China by dressing actresses, folk singers and members of the political elite in her showstopping beaded and embroidered creations.
As China’s economy boomed and shopping became a national pastime, her studio swelled to a current staff of 300 embroiderers and 200 designers, patternmakers and sewers. Today, the house produces more than 4,000 pieces annually, with prices that start at $5,000 and quickly tip into more eye-watering territory.
But in her Paris showroom this night, just a handful of her Chinese team members were crouched at laptops amid cramped clothing racks, storage boxes and styling boards, while a French hairdresser fussed over models being fitted with creations from her latest collection.
“The funny thing is, when I began my own house I had no idea that this type of artistry had a rich and long tradition elsewhere,” she said, her Mandarin translated into English by her husband and business partner Cao Bao Jie. “This world as it existed in the West didn’t exist to me. I was just doing what I liked and thought was truly beautiful.”
Fashion in China then was only just beginning in the way we understand it today, she added: “Very few clients could comprehend what I was trying to show. That craftsmanship and design could add enormous value to a garment, transforming it from a piece of tailoring to a true work of art, was very hard to grasp for them.”
As she gradually convinced them, her prices ballooned, as did the ambitions of her lavish designs. The elaborate excess that has become Ms. Guo’s hallmark — be it vast skirt volumes, lashings of beaded semiprecious stones or rich explosions of embroidered color — marries European silks with traditional Chinese design heritage.
“I don’t consider my work to be within the limits of conventional fashion, nor do I follow trends creatively or commercially,” she said. “My work displays feelings and emotions that are precious enough to be handed down generation after generation, as well as the experience of developing gowns directly with my clients. They are reflections of myself, and of them, of the scale of my dreams and the pride I have for Chinese culture.”
Ms. Guo says that looking ahead, her efforts will focus on expanding her business internationally, with a second atelier headquarters in Paris, as well as on her bridal line as the wedding market in China continues to explode. She introduced a cosmetics line in collaboration with MAC last year, and she has branched out into demicouture from a store in Shanghai.
The designer, who played down any concerns over China’s recent economic slowdown and its potential impact on the couture market, emphasized how grateful she felt for the opportunity to show her creations to a new audience in the days ahead. She was curious, she said, to hear how others interpreted her work, but was confident that her aesthetic would resonate.
“This year is my 30th year in the fashion industry,” she said. “For the first 10 years I learned; for the second, I practiced, and now, during the third, I believe I am going to reap rewards.”
On Wednesday, the 48-year-old former children’s wear designer and daughter of an army platoon leader will formally present her collection for the first time at a major fashion week.
“The Met Ball marked a new start for my business, a brand new chapter that secretly I felt had been coming for years,” she said on Sunday, 5,000 miles from her Beijing headquarters in a tiny, all-white Paris showroom off the Rue St.-Honoré. “I knew there just needed to be a tipping moment to take me into a whole new world.”Photo
Rihanna at the Met Gala last May, wearing an elaborate cape and gown designed by Guo Pei.Credit
Josh Haner/The New York Times
In the two decades since the 1997 opening of Rose Studio, her fashion company specializing in evening wear, Ms. Guo has found fame in China by dressing actresses, folk singers and members of the political elite in her showstopping beaded and embroidered creations.
As China’s economy boomed and shopping became a national pastime, her studio swelled to a current staff of 300 embroiderers and 200 designers, patternmakers and sewers. Today, the house produces more than 4,000 pieces annually, with prices that start at $5,000 and quickly tip into more eye-watering territory.
But in her Paris showroom this night, just a handful of her Chinese team members were crouched at laptops amid cramped clothing racks, storage boxes and styling boards, while a French hairdresser fussed over models being fitted with creations from her latest collection.
“The funny thing is, when I began my own house I had no idea that this type of artistry had a rich and long tradition elsewhere,” she said, her Mandarin translated into English by her husband and business partner Cao Bao Jie. “This world as it existed in the West didn’t exist to me. I was just doing what I liked and thought was truly beautiful.”
Fashion in China then was only just beginning in the way we understand it today, she added: “Very few clients could comprehend what I was trying to show. That craftsmanship and design could add enormous value to a garment, transforming it from a piece of tailoring to a true work of art, was very hard to grasp for them.”
As she gradually convinced them, her prices ballooned, as did the ambitions of her lavish designs. The elaborate excess that has become Ms. Guo’s hallmark — be it vast skirt volumes, lashings of beaded semiprecious stones or rich explosions of embroidered color — marries European silks with traditional Chinese design heritage.
“I don’t consider my work to be within the limits of conventional fashion, nor do I follow trends creatively or commercially,” she said. “My work displays feelings and emotions that are precious enough to be handed down generation after generation, as well as the experience of developing gowns directly with my clients. They are reflections of myself, and of them, of the scale of my dreams and the pride I have for Chinese culture.”
Ms. Guo says that looking ahead, her efforts will focus on expanding her business internationally, with a second atelier headquarters in Paris, as well as on her bridal line as the wedding market in China continues to explode. She introduced a cosmetics line in collaboration with MAC last year, and she has branched out into demicouture from a store in Shanghai.
The designer, who played down any concerns over China’s recent economic slowdown and its potential impact on the couture market, emphasized how grateful she felt for the opportunity to show her creations to a new audience in the days ahead. She was curious, she said, to hear how others interpreted her work, but was confident that her aesthetic would resonate.
“This year is my 30th year in the fashion industry,” she said. “For the first 10 years I learned; for the second, I practiced, and now, during the third, I believe I am going to reap rewards.”
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