I always have a woman like that in mind.” It’s a dress she has to lift, like she can lift the whole world. “When I had this design in mind, I a woman that can carry weight on her arms. Speaking through a translator, she explains why the weight, shape and size of the dress matter. Guo says finding fame through a single dress was “completely unexpected” – particularly the way it was popularised online via omelette memes. For most people, it presents a chance to see the Yellow Empress cape up close. “Rihanna wearing my design had a great impact – and the international fashion industry gained a new understanding of me,” says Guo, who is in Atlanta, Georgia, to promote the first solo exhibition of her work in the US at the city’s SCAD FASH Museum. Rihanna managed to pull it off, though, literally and figuratively. The sheer weight of the dress meant that, when it was first shown, at a 2012 show in China, the model made it only halfway down the catwalk before the lights had to be turned off and the show stopped so that she could remove the cape and return backstage. The now-famous Yellow Empress cape weighs 25kg, has a 16ft train, features over 50,000 hour’s worth of hand embroidery and took two years to make. Guo Pei backstage at Haute couture fashion week, Paris, 2017.

It’s no wonder that she has appeared at Paris couture week, last year becoming the first Chinese national to do so. For the past 20 years, Guo has focused on high fashion, specialising in technical work that is grand in dimension and scale and as intricate as that of any Paris couture house. As Cathy Horyn explained in the New York Times, her career as a designer “began when there was no fashion in her country”. In fact, it had been sitting in Guo’s studio for three years when the singer’s team came across it after making inquiries into Chinese couture during the run up to the 2015 Met Gala, the theme of which was China: Through the Looking Glass.īeijing-born Guo, who turned 50 recently, cut her teeth in fashion design following the Cultural Revolution. Dubbed the omelette dress for its striking resemblance to brunch, it went viral and made the world notice Guo’s work. C hinese designer Guo Pei had been creating couture for more than 30 years when Rihanna stepped on to the red carpet in an extraordinary yellow cape two years ago.

Rihanna work dress