Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy

Abstract

Upon entering San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum, visitors were confronted with French Impressionist Auguste Rodin’s figural sculpture The Age of Bronze (L’Age d’Airain, ca. 1875), gifted to the museum by its founder, philanthropist Alma de Bretteville Spreckels. Installed in the central rotunda of the beaux-arts-inspired building, the naturalism of Rodin’s nineteenth-century nude male stood in stark contrast to the gleaming neo-baroque ensembles by contemporary Chinese couturi ere Guo Pei that faced the famed bronze statue from the museum’s permanent galleries at left and right. More like wearable sculptures than couture garments, Guo’s creations from the 2006 “Samsara” and 2019 “Elysium” collections invited comparison with the historical artworks that surrounded each design, while announcing the spectacular reverie of contemporary fashion that awaited the visitor within the museum (FIGURE 1). Curated by Jill D’Alessandro, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco Curator in Charge of Costume and Textile Arts, Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy was an insistent demonstration of the designer’s innovative historicism, sartorial ambition, and technical skill. On the upper floor, a discrete selection of Guo’s ensembles pierced the customary displays of the permanent collection. Thereafter, on the floor below, an assortment of her most imaginative designs was installed across the temporary exhibition galleries. Without paying the additional entrance fee for the lowerlevel presentation, an endeavoring visitor could measure the opulent gilt vegetal scrolls, appliqu e flowers, and branchlike protrusions of the “Elysium” dress against the simple clothing depicted in Georges de La Tour’s “Old Man” and