China Fashion Week: Chinese couture by Guo Pei
From Godfrey Deeny

Beijing—Turns out there is at least one genuinely great designer in China, a Chinese couturier by the name of Guo Pei, who wowed a packed out audience of 1,500 in Beijing on Thursday, November 16th, the first full day of China Fashion Week.
Guo Pei, a 39-year-old native of Beijing, is famed for dressing local actresses and singers, a score of who sat front row in the Conference Hall of the China World Hotel. Grand crinolines in Montblanc ice and beige hues, ragged chiffon cocktail dresses with 15-foot trains and columns in shards of sequin-bedecked crystal. It was all rather phantasmagorical but beautiful nonetheless.
There were hints of Galliano and McQueen, but Guo Pei very much does her own thing, from the traditional wooden heeled shoes that morphed into red carpet platforms to the exquisitely finished Chinoserie beading and embroidering. Think Salvatore Dali gets to direct a remake of Sofia Coppola’s royalist apologia Marie Antoinette. Guo Pei can also cut a mean suit - a series of midnight blue jackets and boleros with sky blue embroidery and extended chiffon fringes showed she is a great tailor.
Guo Pei first gained attention as chief designer of Tianma (Heavenly Horse) Clothing Company, one of China’s most popular women’s labels of the early Nineties. She established her own company in Meiguifang (Mayflower) in 1996 and has since been regarded as one of China’s top designers.