Simply Abu Dhabi XXXI

GUO PEI C hinese couturier Guo Pei devoted her latest collection to architecture entitling it ‘L’Architecture’. For this theme, Pei showed her collection at the Cite de l’architecture et du patrimoine at Place du Trocadero. The venue was simply perfect. The collection was an ode to architecture, sculpture and the relationship between the human body and spacial dimension with models walking down the runway amid ancient Roman statues, medieval buildings models and ancient churches. As usual for Guo Pei, the show was theatrical and expressed perfectly the message she wanted to convey that ‘Garments are moving creations of architecture.’ Pei’s focus on architecture was the Gothic period and so she constructed gowns and short dresses like churches with pointed arches, arched windows and buttresses, adding different layers of curvature and contours to the pannier with structures that made the dresses actually work in a normal context beyond the runway. The collection was a mixture of Roman and Gothic architecture and particularly intriguing were the details that made clothes seem like a real 3d model of the church she was depicting. Pineapple fibre, muslin, lustrous and highly permeable fabrics, linens, feathers, acrylics, metals transformed into textures were the materials used for the collection that presented Guo as a professional engineer more than architect. In fact, she was able to manage and combine unexpected materials, giving birth to whimsical creations. These creations were almost magical, but in her study of everything from proportions to materials and gravity, she made the magic work. The deep message behind this collection is that haute couture, like good architecture, does not fade with time, remaining immortal generation after generation.