Immersive cultural scripts
In 2021, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, major fashion weeks shifted to online showcases. INF combined its fashion show with a short film, inviting Golden Horse Award winner Chen Shu-fang to star in Time Machine, a work addressing themes of LGBTQ identity and love. The film received widespread acclaim at New York Fashion Week and nominations at 13 film festivals all told. It went on to win eight awards.
In fact, there are common threads that make Kuo’s transition from fashion to film understandable. Guided by his own logical and meticulous mind, Kuo Wei has always been unconventional. Philosophical in approach, he enjoys using textual reading as a starting point to explore the origins and contexts behind social phenomena. He then develops these insights into stories, which culminate in his fashion designs.
He personally conceived the stories for both 2021’s Time Machine and the following year’s concept film, Translate.
Living in Taiwan, he naturally draws a wealth of creative materials from his surroundings. Themes of his work have ranged from local traditions such as guan luo yin (rituals for traveling to the spirit world), traditional general stores, the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks, outdoor banquets, and the female freedivers (ama) of Taiwan and Japan. He has also drawn inspiration from neighboring Japan, exploring themes such as kabuki theater.
As the saying goes, “The more local something is, the more international it becomes.” Some have dubbed Kuo Wei a “taike” designer. (Taike, also spelled tai-ke or taiker, was originally a derogatory term for uneducated Taiwanese people, but has later been embraced as an expression of authentic local working-class culture.) Yet despite the Hoklo grassroots flavor of his works, 70% of his sales are to international clients—particularly women from Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.
Each of his garment designs is a kind of story, one that carries the inquiries and curiosities of Kuo Wei’s mind to ever-distant horizons.