Guo Pei is a familiar name in China’s dress-making circles. For years, her works have been one of the shining highlights of the annual showcase of talent, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. And she was also the designer behind the beautiful ceremonial dresses used in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
She is known for combining the aesthetics of Chinese ink paintings in her fashion designs, and is devoted to advocating the art of Chinese traditional embroidery. Her daring works have won the hearts of celebrities like Lady Gaga, Zhang Ziyi and Li Bingbing.
In a recent interview with Glam Southeast Asia Guo stated tha she started school slightly earlier than her peers and by 15, she was looking for a tertiary institution.
At first she wanted to go to art school, because she loves drawing but at that time, parents didn’t consider art as a viable future. They thought that it’s not a craft that can make you a living. In any case, art schools in those years weren’t doing any enrolment s
Then, she noticed the “clothes design” school for the first time, and she told her mum that she was interested in it. Her mother was surprised and asked what “clothes design” was, she was even more surprised that “clothes”
require designing. Guo told her that she was sure it would be interesting.
Her father said that they were unable to give her any good advice about it, so she would need to find out more information for herself by asking around.
So Guo asked everyone she knew about it, and she was told that it was the same as “tailoring”. In that time, nobody knew much about fashion, we wore simply and in very few colours – typically blue. In fact “fashion” was a term that was unheard of, that’s why nobody even called the craft “fashion design” in China, 30 years ago, it was more like “clothes design”
Eventually, she decided that she wanted to learn “clothes design” and applied for the course. Competition was really tough that year. There were 500 applicants and only 26 vacancies. Strangely, at that time, while she had no relevant background or family “guanxi” (relationship) to get her into the school, she was still very sure she was going to be selected. Guo can’t explain that relentless confidence that she felt at that time.
HAUTE
GUO PEI
THE QUEEN OF
HAUTE COUTURE
PHOTS; COURTESY GUO PEI
BELLE