After the reform and opening up, the first generation of costume designers from the class, the Spring Festival Gala dress designer, the Beijing Olympic Games awards dress designer, the only invited member of the Paris Haute Couture Guild in China... When it comes to designer Guo Pei, he can say many titles, and each of them is extremely gold-rich.
But this time, Guo Pei, who walked into the lens of Sohu Fashion [Chinese Style and Style Character], wanted to share with you some of the "small things" she had experienced in more than thirty years of fashion design - her dissatisfaction with herself, the waiting she had experienced, the anxiety and growth on the couture stage in Paris, and her eternal love and pursuit of beautiful big dresses.
The "blockbuster" designer decided to resign
For Guo Pei, becoming a fashion designer is predestined.
As early as the age of two, Guo Pei helped his mother sewing needles with bad eyes. The story of how to embroider flowers and butterflies on clothes that her grandmother told her every night lit up the small flame of Guo Pei's desire to pursue beautiful clothes in his childhood. Under the influence of the family atmosphere, "making a beautiful dress" naturally became her dream at a very young age.
In 1986, 19-year-old Guo Pei entered the field of fashion design after graduating from beijing Second Light Industry School, becoming the first generation of fashion designers born in the class after the reform and opening up.
In an era when everyone was eager to embrace new things and material supply was in short supply, guo Pei, who was professionally educated, quickly became a well-known "explosive designer". One year, she participated in the selection of China's top ten designers, and her cumulative sales reached 360,000 pieces. I have also created a surprising figure that a clothing style has sold as many as 50,000 pieces. At that time, counting how many people in the line wore clothes of his own design was a great pleasure for Guo Pei on his daily commute, "If I don't count ten in a day, I will be a little disappointed." Another interesting story is that in the movie "The Second Son Opens a Shop", Chen Peisi wore a flower shirt designed by Guo Pei.
At that time, people's thirst for beauty can almost be described as "touching", Guo Pei still remembers that her suits made of a batch of cheap tablecloths exported to domestic sales have become sought-after goods, even if the fabric quality is too inferior to the clothes washed once shrunk and deformed, the girls will still wear the body beautifully.
But such a popular and money-making "blockbuster" can not let Guo Pei get self-satisfaction, "the purpose of ready-to-wear design is to sell, in order to sell money, in this case, the more I do to make the boss more satisfied, the more dissatisfied I am with myself." Because in Guo Pei's heart, the childhood dream of "making a beautiful big dress for a beautiful person like Princess Xixi" has never been extinguished.
After completing the sales stipulated by the boss once, but the boss did not fulfill the promise of letting her make a big dress, Guo Pei resolutely resigned and started the road of entrepreneurship, "My idea at that time was very simple, that is, to be free, that is, to make that big dress." ”
The "big skirt" that waited for eight years
Dreams have long been illuminated into reality. In the past 20 years, Guo Pei has made countless "big skirts", not to mention the "battle robes" that have sensationalized the global fashion circle and entertainment circle, such as the yellow robe that Rihanna walked on the metGala red carpet, and the "big gold" that is constantly exhibited in major top museums around the world. Everything seems so satisfactory, but behind the smooth, from resigning to actually making the first big dress, Guo Pei has actually experienced eight years of waiting.
In 1997, Guo Pei used 600,000 yuan of start-up capital to create a personal clothing brand - Rose Fang. In her plan, the money should be enough for two years, "I thought it was simple, when the money ran out I would disband the company, and then go to other clothing brands to find a job and continue to do design." 」 ”
At that time, Guo Pei had no concept of business operation at all, and she never thought about making money, she always made a bunch of clothes to take to the major fashion weeks, and in just half a year, the money was "burned" out. It was from that moment that Guo Pei's whole person had a complete transformation, "immediately from the depths of his heart to breed a sense of responsibility: it is impossible to recruit so many people, say that if you don't do it, let the employees go home, the company is like a child raised by himself, you can't say don't want it." It was at that moment that she began to understand the pain of the boss who did not allow herself to make a "big dress", and also began to change her identity, thinking of various ways to make money for the company - she designed various brands, did research and development, and even filed a lawsuit in court when she was nine months pregnant.
On the road of "making money", Guo Pei's desire to make a "big skirt" in his heart has never changed. Whenever this idea fermented in her mind, the other she always persuaded herself to "not yet be able", "the company still needs to make money", "wait and wait". In this state of continuous "struggle" between desire and repression, it was not until 2005, eight years after starting his business, that Guo Pei finally made the first "big skirt", which was the "big gold" that caused a sensation around the world.
This "big gold" flashes like a dazzling light like the midday sun, and Guo Pei expects it to withstand the test of time. The combination of top embroidery techniques in China and the West, the use of cushion embroidery, gold embroidery and other techniques, so that the skirt body presents a three-dimensional effect of relief texture. The Buddha flowers on the skirt are connected, symbolizing reincarnation.
What is even more amazing is the unprecedented historical data on fashion contained in this "big gold" - weighing 200 pounds, the skirt is 5 meters long, and 28,000 hand-embroidered silver buckles are used, which cost thousands of silver threads. What's even more shocking is that it was completed in 50,000 hours by 100 embroiderers, which is equivalent to the nearly six years of life of an embroiderer who has spent sleeplessly.
In 2015, this "big gold" appeared at the famous "China: Mirror Flower Water Moon" fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, allowing the world's audience to see the super high standard of modern Chinese fashion design, and the New York Times commented that this dress "represents Chinese fashion". In 2020, the Musée d'Art Décoratife in Paris, located in the Louvre, launched a "luxury" exhibition that brings together more than 100 representative works from all over the world and different eras, the largest of which was given to Guo Pei's golden dress.
Why does this "big gold" have such an impressive energy? For this problem, Guo Pei has her own thinking, she feels that not only is the 50,000 hours of labor condensed behind this "big gold", but also precipitated her decades of expectations, "In order to make this big dress, I waited for many, many years, and did a lot of things for it - including what I didn't want to do in my heart." I kept accumulating energy, and finally, all the waiting, the passion, exploded on this dress, desperately. It is not only a skirt, but also a condensation of time, life and human expectations. ”
"Couture" worn for the soul
As a costume designer, Guo Pei has too many successful labels on him and has created many "firsts". She has been designing costumes for the Spring Festival Gala since 1998 and is also the designer of the Beijing Olympic Awards dress.
Looking at the international fashion stage, Guo Pei is the only invited member of the Paris Haute Couture Guild (renamed "Haute Couture and Fashion Federation") in China. Since January 2016, she has been officially invited to Paris Couture Fashion Week, and by 2020, she has released her works at Paris Couture Fashion Week for five consecutive years and ten times, creating the history of Chinese design.
Compared with the glory of being recognized by the Parisian couture stage at the tip of the fashion pyramid, Guo Pei enjoys the satisfaction of completing his inner expression again and again on the couture stage. On the stage of Paris Couture Week, Guo Pei not only brought the beautiful and suitable dress works in people's impressions such as "Courtyard", "Meet" and "Couture Era", but also "Legends", "Elysium Island", "Other Worlds" and "Himalayas" and other works that seem to be incomprehensible and seem to be created for the soul.
(Guo Pei's 2016 spring/summer couture "courtyard" series)
(Guo Pei's 2016 autumn/winter couture "Meet" series)
(Guo Pei's 2017 autumn/winter couture "couture years" series)
Guo Pei explained that her couture works are not created for others to understand, nor for who can wear them, "just like artists use color and writers use words, couture is my 'weapon' as a fashion designer, I use them to express my inner emotions and feelings about the world, purely for inner expression." ”
(Guo Pei's 2017 spring-summer couture "Legends" series)
(Guo Pei's 2020 spring/summer couture "Himalaya" series)
After completing ten consecutive Paris Couture Week releases, Guo Pei gained more recognition and reached a new height in her career, but in her own heart, behind these ten journeys is actually a real life experience of constantly solving difficulties, she has both been happy for the first time to submit materials to the French Couture Guild, and has also been anxious for the second show with only 40 days of preparation time, and when she did the fourth show, she really had confidence and began to be addicted to the show.
After ten shows, Guo Pei's biggest gain is not the evaluation given by the outside world, but his own growth, "After ten shows, I found that I have adapted to the pressure of doing a show once in half a year, and the show has changed from a pressure to my inner expectation." Behind this change is the role of persistence, is their own continuous growth. ”
The Dream of a Fashion Museum
Over the years, Guo Pei's works have often been invited to be exhibited in major museums around the world, and during this interview, Guo Pei is preparing a new exhibition in american museums. Guo Pei hopes to tell more young colleagues through his own experience: don't be impatient, bury your head in yourself seriously, and when you are shining, in fact, many opportunities will come to you.
(Stars designed by Guo Pei)
When it comes to the future, being able to make a fashion museum of his own in his lifetime is Guo Pei's next goal. Behind this goal is that Guo Pei has created a large number of works in recent decades, and another reason is that she is a designer who has hardly sold her own works - although the "big gold" has been paid for 5 million, she still insists on not wavering for money. These works have gathered thousands of pieces, and she looks forward to having a space to collect and display all these works in the future, "I hope that this museum can become a medium for Chinese fashion cultural exchanges, and I hope that everyone can see the dream that I have been trying to practice all my life - the most beautiful dress created for sharing, for expression, for love." ”
Style parlor
Sohu Fashion: How do you define "Chinese style"?
Guo Pei: First of all, I think that the style is not defined by myself, but first according to my own aesthetics and hobbies to create, when the accumulation reaches a certain level, the style is naturally formed and defined by others. For example, when I was in Paris, they would point to the embroidery on my clothes and say, "Guo Pei, this is your brand", and I think this is the place that the work has when it has a certain degree of recognition. I will not emphasize that my work is "Chinese style", I think a high-level designer, she must stand at the height of all mankind to widely absorb the excellent cultures around the world, but there is no doubt that the influence of domestic culture on style must be the most profound. For example, the embroidery of many of my clothes uses modern metal thread instead of traditional Chinese velvet thread, and the pattern is not a traditional Chinese pattern, but it will give people a Chinese taste, because I am a Chinese designer, and the culture of our motherland will always flow in my creation like blood.
Sohu Fashion: Where did your design inspiration come from?
Guo Pei: When a guest appears in front of me, she is my inspiration. The moment I see her, I use my decades of accumulation to imagine what kind of clothes she would wear on that occasion and get noticed. But there are also many inspirations, such as my couture show inspiration is definitely not so realistic, take the "Legends" series, I am the moment I walk into a church, I am dizzy, in that moment, I imagine my life there into a pink bubble, I melt in it, this is the inspiration. This inspiration is so strong that I will desperately share my work with you. So the real inspiration comes from your subconscious, but your subconscious must be in line with what you've been seeing, what you like, what you crave, and what you have been looking for.
Sohu Fashion: What does Guo Pei look like in life?
Guo Pei: I don't like to travel, I don't like to go out, I don't like to eat with people, and I don't like sports. Visiting the museum is probably the only thing I love, I like to go to the museum to see the creations of people in the past, to feel their thoughts, love and passion. The rest of the time, I would quietly wander around my own world, drawing, reading, and creating.
-- Produced by Sohu Fashion --
Producer: Fan Yijun
Content Planning: Huang Siwei
Guest Coordinator, Editor: Huang Siwei
Photography: Li Yihao, Yang Shaojie
Later: Li Yihao
On-site coordination: Zhuang Wei
Design: Zhang Ce
Lighting: Zhang Linbao
Makeup: Yu Jia