For designer, art is her mother tongue

HONG KONG — To Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei, there are not as many Fall/Winter or Resort collections as there are "museum collections", like the one she is now presenting in the M+ Museum of visual culture in Hong Kong.

"It is my goal to make clothes that belong in museums," said Guo, sitting meters from The Yellow Queen, a silk embroidered yellow gown complete with lavish fox fur trim and a 4-meter train. In 2015, US pop icon Rihanna almost crashed the internet with images and memes of her rocking the dress on the red carpet of the Met Gala.

When Guo completed the dress in 2009, who would be wearing it was not on her mind so much as the desire to express her ideal of timeless beauty, just as she did with the over 40 pieces on display at the Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination exhibition at M+ through April 6.

Born in 1967 in Beijing, Guo went from being a successful mass-market ready-to-wear designer to owner of the atelier Rose Studio in 1997, and presented 10 haute couture shows at Paris Fashion Week at the invitation of the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the governing body for the French fashion industry.