San Francisco's Legion of Honneur museum offers a dazzling selection of Guo Pei’s magnificent haute couture gowns created from 2006 to the present. Considered to be the first Chinese haute couturier, Guo Pei grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a tumultuous period where anything belonging to China’s Imperial past - traditions, script, literature, arts and antiquities, family histories and property - were all forbidden or destroyed. With an inexhaustible vocabulary of traditional motifs (lotus, Buddha, dragon, lilies, peacocks) woven onto sumptuous gold thread, “Guo Pei creates a fantasy that fuses the influences of China’s imperial past, decorative arts, European architecture, and the botanical world.” As imposing as the garments are, they also seem to poke fun at the spiritual and cultural weight of couture and Chinese traditional values. In several of her architecture series pieces, she uses bamboo strips, a material usually used as throwaway building scaffolding, in constructing Edwardian-style hoop skirts with boned corsets. In another couple of pieces from the same collection, she references Gothic cathedrals in monochrome embroidery on silk gauze: One can see pointed arches, flying buttresses, and stained glass sections placed where the wearer’s chest would be. Formerly reserved by law for the royal court, yellow silk dragons make their appearance time and again over gowns, deconstructed epaulets, even chaps held up by gold ribbons.

John Martin, The Assuaging of the Waters, 1840, Oil on canvas, 11/23/22 #legionofhonor #artmuseum by Sharon Mollerus

Legion of Honor San Francisco, CA

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I haven’t been to this museum in more than 5 years. I forgot how beautiful it is.

Last week, we visited The Legion of Honor to see the incredible Guo Pei fashion exhibit.

Beautiful artwork from the Legion of Honor Museum. Excuse the glare; the pieces are behind glass.

a day at the legion of honor ❣️

I went to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco today! I’ll post some lovely photos here! :D

Jules Bastien-Lepage (French, 1848–1884)

Portrait de Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), 1879, Legion of Honor museum, San Francisco

Oil on canvas

Claude Monet, The Grand Canal, Venice, 1908, Oil on canvas, 11/23/22 #legionofhonor #artmuseum by Sharon Mollerus

Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy

Legion of Honor | San Francisco, CA 

Of the Ages by Thomas Hawk

10/11/23 - Pretty lights & pretty frames