![]() I was very surprised when they took me backstage and showed me a pannier made of bamboo and layers of petticoats that were hidden inside a skirt. "I went to the theatre and asked the costumers if they could help me. "When I was working on my graduation design, I specifically wanted to make a very large skirt, like in western movies, but I had no idea how the inside of the skirt would need to be made," Guo tells BBC Culture. The sense of spectacle would have a profound effect on Guo, both on her clothing designs and the theatrical nature of her catwalk presentations. ![]() One of the few art forms that was allowed to continue during the Cultural Revolution, thanks largely to the fact that Mao's wife was an actress, the theatre was an environment where clothing designers could still express their artistry when everything outside was dour and grey. At a loss as to how to help her create the garments of her dreams, her tutors sent her to the theatre for guidance. However, neither the students nor teachers had much knowledge of global fashion trends, leaving Guo to find inspiration in films such as Gone with the Wind and historical Western novels. When Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978, two years after Mao's death, his sweeping reforms enabled Guo to attend one of the newly established government-operated fashion programmes. It made me believe I could create even more beautiful clothes," Guo tells BBC Culture. "I thought the clothes looked better because I couldn't see them, so a wish was planted in my heart. Although she had been forced to destroy all her possessions including clothing, jewellery and photographs, at night she would regale the young Guo with descriptions of exquisite garments, sowing seeds in her fertile imagination. Solace came in the form of her maternal grandmother who was raised in an elite family during the twilight days of the last Imperial era, the Qing Dynasty. Born in 1967 at the start of Mao's Cultural Revolution, she had an austere childhood in the household of her platoon-leader father. Guo's extraordinarily creative mind developed in less-than-auspicious surroundings. I can't think of anyone like her, quite frankly, in the way she synthesises so broadly." "She comes from a totally different direction, and has forged her own path that comes out of her own lived experiences and fecund imagination that seems to bring disparate components together and find connections that are exceptional. "She's not constrained by an immediate sensibility of what is in or out," says Thomas P Campbell, director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. From futuristic ensembles to porcelain-inspired robes with gravity defying pleats, her creations are a world apart from other designers. Her fantastical gowns and accessories blur the boundaries between fashion, art and sculpture. ![]() Her extraordinary creations, which can be seen in the Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy exhibition at the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, are inspired by everything from Chinese Imperial history to European court dress and cathedral architecture. It's almost a cliché to refer to certain fashion designs as works of art but when it comes to the Chinese couturier Guo Pei, the comparison is richly deserved.
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