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Until nine months ago, Guo Pei was a Chinese haute couturier known by millions in the East yet virtually unheard-of in the West. That all changed last May when the pop star Rihanna wore one of Ms. Guo’s designs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute gala in New York, after finding her work on the Internet. The look in question, a 55-pound canary-yellow fur-trimmed gown and cape, took seamstresses 50,000 hours and more than two years to make and landed on the cover of American Vogue — and Ms. Guo on the haute couture schedule in Paris.
9个月前，中国高级定制时装设计师郭培在东方为数千万人所知，在西方却几乎无人知晓。去年5月，这一切都变了。流行歌星蕾哈娜(Rihanna)在网上看到郭培的作品后，身穿她设计的礼服参加纽约大都会艺术博物馆(Metropolitan Museum of Art)服装学院(Costume Institute)的晚宴。那天蕾哈娜穿的是鲜黄色皮毛镶边长袍和披风，重55磅（约合25公斤），花费5万个小时、两年多时间制作。她的造型登上了《Vogue》美国版封面，而郭培的高级定制时装秀也计划将在巴黎举办。
On Wednesday, the 48-year-old former children’s wear designer and daughter of an army platoon leader will formally present her collection for the first time at a major fashion week.
周三（1月27日），这位48岁的前童装设计师、排长女儿将在著名时装周上首次正式展示自己的服装系列。
“The Met Ball marked a new start for my business, a brand new chapter that secretly I felt had been coming for years,” she said on Sunday, 5,000 miles from her Beijing headquarters in a tiny, all-white Paris showroom off the Rue St.-Honoré. “I knew there just needed to be a tipping moment to take me into a whole new world.”
周日（1月24日），在离她的北京总部5000英里外的巴黎圣奥诺雷街上一个全白小展厅里接受采访时，她说：“大都会晚宴标志着我事业的一个新开端，一个新篇章，多年来我一直隐隐感觉这个时刻会到来。我知道，需要这样一个爆发时刻把我带入一个全新的世界。”
In the two decades since the 1997 opening of Rose Studio, her fashion company specializing in evening wear, Ms. Guo has found fame in China by dressing actresses, folk singers and members of the political elite in her showstopping beaded and embroidered creations.
1997年，郭培创立了专做晚装的时装公司玫瑰坊(Rose Studio)。20年来，她为女演员、民歌手和政界精英设计令人难忘的以饰珠和刺绣为特色的服装，在中国赢得声誉。
As China’s economy boomed and shopping became a national pastime, her studio swelled to a current staff of 300 embroiderers and 200 designers, patternmakers and sewers. Today, the house produces more than 4,000 pieces annually, with prices that start at $5,000 and quickly tip into more eye-watering territory.
随着中国经济蓬勃发展，购物成为中国人的一项消遣，她的作坊也随之壮大，目前有300名刺绣师以及200名设计师、图案设计者和缝纫师。如今，这家公司每年生产4000多件服装，起价5000美元，并很快进入更令人艳羡的领域。
But in her Paris showroom this night, just a handful of her Chinese team members were crouched at laptops amid cramped clothing racks, storage boxes and styling boards, while a French hairdresser fussed over models being fitted with creations from her latest collection.
但是今晚（1月24日），在她的巴黎展厅里，只有她的几位中国团队成员蜷缩在手提电脑前，坐在狭窄的衣架、贮藏箱和造型板之间，一位法国发型师在忙着给身穿她最新系列服装的模特们摆弄发型。
“The funny thing is, when I began my own house I had no idea that this type of artistry had a rich and long tradition elsewhere,” she said, her Mandarin translated into English by her husband and business partner Cao Bao Jie. “This world as it existed in the West didn’t exist to me. I was just doing what I liked and thought was truly beautiful.”
郭培在采访中说中文，她的丈夫兼商业伙伴曹宝杰帮她翻成英文。她说：“有趣的是，我开创自己的服装公司时，完全不知道这种手工艺在其他地方有丰富和漫长的传统。这个世界一直在西方存在，只是我不知道。我只是在做自己喜欢的、自己觉得非常美丽的东西。”
Fashion in China then was only just beginning in the way we understand it today, she added: “Very few clients could comprehend what I was trying to show. That craftsmanship and design could add enormous value to a garment, transforming it from a piece of tailoring to a true work of art, was very hard to grasp for them.”
当时的中国服装业刚走上如今我们理解的道路。她补充说，“几乎没有哪个客户能理解我努力展现的东西。那种工艺和设计能给服装增加巨大价值，把服装变成真正的艺术品，他们很难理解这一点。”
As she gradually convinced them, her prices ballooned, as did the ambitions of her lavish designs. The elaborate excess that has become Ms. Guo’s hallmark — be it vast skirt volumes, lashings of beaded semiprecious stones or rich explosions of embroidered color — marries European silks with traditional Chinese design heritage.
她慢慢说服客户之后，她的价格飞涨起来，她奢华设计的雄心也跟着膨胀。精致、复杂、夸张已经成为郭培的特点——不管是宽大的裙摆、大量半宝石珠饰，还是刺绣色彩的大爆炸——她把欧洲丝绸与中国传统设计结合了起来。
“I don’t consider my work to be within the limits of conventional fashion, nor do I follow trends creatively or commercially,” she said. “My work displays feelings and emotions that are precious enough to be handed down generation after generation, as well as the experience of developing gowns directly with my clients. They are reflections of myself, and of them, of the scale of my dreams and the pride I have for Chinese culture.”
她说：“我认为自己的作品不受限于传统服装，我也不在创意或商业上跟随潮流。我的作品展示非常珍贵的感受和情绪，它们应该代代传承，还有我与客户们直接改进礼服设计的经验，也应该传承下去。那些礼服反映出我自己、我的客户们、我宏大的梦想以及我对中国文化的自豪感。”
Ms. Guo says that looking ahead, her efforts will focus on expanding her business internationally, with a second atelier headquarters in Paris, as well as on her bridal line as the wedding market in China continues to explode. She introduced a cosmetics line in collaboration with MAC last year, and she has branched out into demicouture from a store in Shanghai.
郭培说，未来她会把重点放在扩展国际业务上，将在巴黎开设第二个工坊，并开发新娘系列，因为中国的婚礼市场仍在继续发展。去年，她与MAC合作推出了一个化妆品系列，还把上海的一家店变成了半定制服装分店。
The designer, who played down any concerns over China’s recent economic slowdown and its potential impact on the couture market, emphasized how grateful she felt for the opportunity to show her creations to a new audience in the days ahead. She was curious, she said, to hear how others interpreted her work, but was confident that her aesthetic would resonate.
郭培表示自己对最近中国经济放缓及其对高级定制市场的潜在影响没有任何顾虑，强调她很感激有机会在未来的日子里向新观众展示自己的创意。她说，她很想知道别人会如何解读她的作品，不过她对自己的审美会引起共鸣充满信心。
“This year is my 30th year in the fashion industry,” she said. “For the first 10 years I learned; for the second, I practiced, and now, during the third, I believe I am going to reap the rewards.”
她说：“今年是我进入时装业30年。头十年，我学习；第二个十年，我实践；如今在第三个十年，我相信自己能得到回报。”
