One thing I appreciated about New York when I was there this fall was the quality of the museums. But Los Angeles has awesome museums too!
And one of them is only 20 miles away!
As far as Orange County museums go, Bowers Museum is thought to be the all-around winner: largest, oldest, and best. It opened in 1936 and then again in 1992 after a massive overhaul.
I went mostly to see the Guo Pei: Art of Couture special exhibit.
Guo Pei grew up wearing communist gray, but her grandmother told her stories about beautiful clothes.
Guo Pei started sewing when she was two and eventually went on to graduate from the Beijing School of Industrial Fashion Design.
Then she launched her own label and started expanding.
Currently there are 500 people working for her. It can take two years to finish some outfits.
In 2015 Rihanna wore a Guo Pei gown to the Met Gala. (It was yellow, a color that Guo Pei loved working with because she’d been told it was restricted to royalty.) That event got Guo Pei inducted into the Paris fashion scene.
She now has a studio in Paris and was invited to become a member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, which means she’s been having shows at Paris fashion week.
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