Unaddressed
China’s most famous couturier finally gets some love from the home neighbourhood.
Fair or not, most of us know fashion designer-artist Guo Pei’s work because of the Good Girl Gone Bad. When Robyn Fenty – AKA Rihanna – wore her canary yellow, fur-edged, floral embroidered gown to the Met Gala in 2015, complete with a three-man entourage to help manoeuvre the 25-kilogram dress’s massive train, the world beyond Asia and global fashion niches clued in to Guo’s singular genius. She’s been the subject of museum exhibitions in Auckland, San Francisco, Paris (duh), London, Vancouver and Singapore, but strangely, despite her renown in the region, Beijing-born Guo’s never been the subject of a comprehensive event in East Asia. So to that end, until early April, M+ turns its spotlight on China’s most creative couturier in Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination.
The Rihanna dress – officially The Yellow Queen – is just one of the, for lack of a better word, frocks incorporating traditional Chinese craftsmanship and embroidery, Western tailoring and 19th century European dressmaking we typically call haute couture in some of the wildest and most outré combination ever put to fabric. And we mean that in a good way. Ikko Yokoyama, M+’s lead curator for design and architecture, selected 44 garments from 10 series for the exhibition, broken down by five themes that demonstrate Guo’s philosophy and evolution: the nature-focused The Joy of Life, pivoting on the Garden of Soul (2015) and An Amazing Journey in a Childhood Dream (2007) collections; New Tales from the East’s 1002 Nights (2009) and East Palace (2019) explore folktales and ancient symbols; architecture is at the root of Legends (2017) and L’Architecture (2018) in Transcending Space; global mythologies are the source of Legend of the Dragon (2012) and Elysium (2018) in Ethereal Mythologies; and On Dreams and Reality uses Samsara (2006) and Encounter (2016) to reflect on time.
The Yellow Queen (displayed as part of 1002 Nights) which took 50,000 hours nearly two years to finish – is undoubtedly a highlight, but The Qing Hua Porcelain (also 1002), The Magnificent Gold (Samsara), The Gold Boat (Elysium) and the sleek modernist designs in Encounter are worth boggling over too. Guo’s works, on loan from her Rose Studio, shimmer and sparkle much more vividly than any dress normally should, and on that very surface level they’re worth a look. But a whole gallery’s space, for six months seems like a lot of energy going to what Miranda Priestly broke down in about 30 seconds. For most of us, fashion is the (sadly) disposable junk at Zara, H&M, The Gap or Shein. Despite the skill and creativity involved, what exactly are normies supposed to take from Guo’s elaborate gowns?
“I think that’s a great question, because I really want to emphasise that yes, there is commercial fashion work, but this exhibition is very different from that,” said Yokoyama ahead of the show’s opening. “We really put an emphasis on the garments as art pieces, as much as any other collection at M+. So you look at art, and maybe you don’t understand it. Maybe it feels far away from your own life, but by really looking at it you’ll discover something meaningful. Guo Pei’s garments are exactly the same. It’s not about commercialism and fast-paced consumer fashion. Even on a runway you get 20 seconds to look at the work of the people that went into it. This exhibition forces you to slow down and look carefully. It's not about ‘Can I wear this?’ We want people to appreciate the craftsmanship and the work, and then also the messages.”
And there are many messages in Guo’s designs – about cultivating and accepting the self, about the cycles of life and the indelible march of time, about the expression of culture through symbols and images. Those messages are complemented by 46 works by 37 artists from M+’s own collection in dialogue with Guo’s couture art. Among the sculptures, paintings, drawings and prints are Swiss and American Hong Kong-based duo Julie & Jesse’s Fragment(s) from 2012, part of a concept series exploring “the limits and the relationships between moulding techniques, kaolin, firing and colours.” The porcelain vase captures the decay of a mould and reveals the deterioration lingering just beneath the surface. It’s paired with The Qing Hua Porcelain. The stylised Arabic calligraphy of 1976’s screen print Surat Rahmat, by Indonesian abstract artist AD Pirous, mirrors the gold train of The Yellow Queen, even though it doesn’t share an alphabet. Yoko Ono’s Apple, commemorating her first encounter with John Lennon, is paired with Guo’s breakout design The Magnificent Gold. Labelled a “temporary” work when Ono originally created it as a concept piece in 1966, it was supposed to sit on plexiglass and decompose naturally until Lennon took a big, rude bite out of it. Each dress has a traditional artwork that explores the same theme – or, if you prefer, vice versa – and supports the idea that Guo is contemplating and reflecting on the world around her through art. If you’re browsing the gowns and still can’t really figure out what’s going on in each one (you wouldn’t be alone) there are handy QR codes scattered around the gallery with further explanations and/or demonstrations.
The show opens on September 21 with The Art of of Fashion: In Conversation with Guo Pei, Ikko Yokoyama, and Desiree Au, which pretty much says it all and gives fans (do artistic designers have fans?) a chance to hear Guo talk about her own work. After that, anyone with a thirst for a deeper dive would do well to check out Pietra Brettkelly’s 2018 doc Yellow Is Forbidden, chronicling a much bigger chunk of Guo’s life, education and process – some of it as an outsider to the Western haute couture scene – as she preps for the 2017 Conciergerie at Paris’s Haute Couture Week (September 21 and 22; October 20; December 15).
“The purpose of this entire exhibition is sharing, because the creations are basically the outcome of inspiration I’ve had from touring the globe and visiting different cultures and cultural exchange,” Guo finishes through a translator. “I want to share these creations with a much broader audience, worldwide, and also share the love and emotional values that created them, and that these garments actually carry. Museums are the best platform for conveying the messages, and actually these aren’t only mine. They’re a creation of humankind.”
Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination
Where: M+, Main Hall Gallery
Hours: Through April 6, 2025, 10am-6pm; Fridays 10am-10pm
Closed: Mondays
Details: Tickets HK$160; students, seniors 60+, children 7-11, CSSA recipients, HK$80. Information and tickets at M+