On April 16th, 2022, the Legion of Honor museum opened a new exhibit titled “Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy.” Tucked away in a foggy corner of Lincoln Park, this show is on track to be one of the most popular in the Legion of Honor’s history. In the exhibit, Beijing-based fashion designer and couturier Guo Pei merges a myriad of Western inspirations with aspects of her own Chinese heritage to create lavishly adorned gowns.

Pei grew up in the midst of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, an era that silenced scholars, artists and anyone who held on to traditional Chinese culture. When Pei was young, her grandmother would describe the gowns she wore in the late Qing Dynasty, which inspired Pei to reclaim her culture in a creative way. “The fabric is smooth, embroidered with flowers and butterflies. I often close my eyes to imagine [the dresses.] Beautiful, like a dream.” Pei said in a video about the exhibit.

As she grew older and worked in the fashion industry, Pei was inspired by European architecture, art and court life. She incorporated her observations from European art into her own work, especially the works she created while in Paris, while still carrying her generational story. “Throughout her career, Guo Pei first represented the evolution of Chinese fashion, but today I believe she represents a global fashion narrative,” said Jill D’Alessandro, curator in charge of Costume and Textile Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, said in a video about the exhibit.

“Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy” displays nine different collections of Pei’s work from the last two decades, all of them portraying different cultural and religious themes. The gowns are distributed throughout the museum, with some in the permanent exhibition rooms upstairs. “[Guo Pei] and the curator tried to … take pieces and pair them with art in the [Legion of Honor] so that people could look at the rooms and think about the conversation with the paintings here,” said Carolyn Galbreath, a docent at the Legion of Honor, in an interview with The Urban Legend.  

Walking through the exhibit, each gown encapsulates the quality of craftsmanship, technique and detail behind Pei’s work. In Pei’s 2020 Himalaya collection, she deconstructed Japanese obis, or Japanese kimono sashes, and pieced together the interior fabric for her gowns. “I think this is one of the most interesting and most indicative of her ability to imagine things differently,” said Galbreath. A gown from the 2019 East Palace collection was made with mother of pearl fabric, the iridescent lining of mollusk shells. Galbreath added, “the fabric is [constructed with] pieces of mother of pearl…shaved into very thin pieces and woven by hand.” 

In addition to the unique materials Pei used for her gowns, minute details such as tiny Swarovski crystals, metallic threads and textured accessories all show the opulence of the exhibit. Many of these incredibly intricate gowns took the skilled artisans in Pei’s atelier hundreds of hours to create. Former Urban teacher Deborah Dent-Samake explained how Urban students can appreciate the construction, designs and history behind the gowns. “Some people think stereotypically that only women and fashion people like the museum, but I think [the exhibit] is something that anyone can enjoy.” The show will be on display until November 27th, so consider making a trip to the Legion of Honor museum to enjoy “Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy.”