When you think of San Francisco’s history of fashion post-1906 earthquake, what might come to mind is the free-spirited hippie era of bell bottoms and psychedelic print mini-dresses or picturing the serious, all-black outfits the Beat generation wore while listening to poetry or experimental jazz in 1950s North Beach nightclubs.
Photo Gallery of ‘Guo Pei: Couture Fashion’
China’s premier fashion designer Guo Pei knew her structural, intricately embroidered couture gowns belonged in a museum. So did the people in charge of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, who have staged the largest presentation of her 40-year career titled, “Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy.”
designer Guo Pei creates a couture fantasy that fuses the influences of China’s imperial past with export art, the grandeur of European court life, architecture, and the botanical world.
For fashion designer Patrick Kelly, it was all about the buttons – the mismatched ones adorning his signature body-conscious knit dresses and the metaphorical buttons he pushed addressing race, class and sexuality.
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 