Building a Wonderland

Shaly Guo is a fashion designer who graduated from the School of Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2017 with her master degree. Her sophisticated women’s garments were exhibited at SAIC’s 5.13-5.30 Design Show held in Block 37, Chicago. Shaly’s unique style has drawn a lot of attention in the world of fashion. As an outstanding student in SAIC, Shaly was once invited to have a solo show in Florence, Italy. Her works were also found in runway shows during Midwest Fashion week, Austin Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week in 2016. Before pursuing her master degree in SAIC, she was a student from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. She was awarded Excellent Fashion Designer by China Textile and Apparel Education Society. This coming September, She will be at New York Fashion Week 2017 with her eye-catching new season collection.

Shaly grows up in Beijing. Like most of the talented designers, she fell in love with fashion since very early age. Shaly has more than 15 years experience in traditional Chinese ink painting. Her deep understanding in traditional Chinese arts helped in developing her own style of fashion design. Shaly is also good at singing. She became a member of local Philharmonic Choir when she was four. She has performed in United States, Canada, Russia, Turkey, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia with the choir. She was touched by different ways of expression in arts while traveling in different countries.

Shaly entered the world of fashion design in 2011. With previous work experience in Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton and Claudia Li, Shaly now defines her self as forward thinker with clear understanding of practical fashion and innovation. She has passion in using stories to go beyond the boundary of reality and float into a world full of romance and beauty. Her collection in this season is named Do You Wanna Play With Me? The inspiration came from her childhood memories. It is not difficult to find the images of a zoo with giraffe and polar bear, traditional music box with beautiful gems, adorable Barbie doll whose hair was too hard to be taken care of, carp-shaped flags with various design and colors, as well as pieces of costumes for the role of princess who lived in the Forbidden City.

There have always been a lot of bright colors and impressive patterns in her design. “I feel like I were building myself a wonderland, where I would always be a child with endless sweet dreams and fantasy. ” said Shaly. She enjoys using her favorite painting works as the base patterns for her design. Childhood memories are precious and everyone can only live once. Shaly is trying to use her works to remind the happiness, fears, sweet dreams, as well as loneliness she had when she was a little girl. As to the accessories, embroidery was used. Traditional Chinese badges with embroidery were once used as symbols of awards. These badges remark every step of exploration and growth in Shaly’s design.

Shaly hopes that her design could help her to tell interesting stories with twisted endings. Both her fashion designs and painting works are bringing childhood happiness back to everyone who looks into them. Shaly said that there were always people who hoped that they could never grow old but we had to get used to the grown-up’s world where there is no candies and toys. “Let’s keep our innocence and curiosity along with our growth.”

Shaly founded her women’s ready-to-wear brand in New York. Please find her new released collection at RAW New York City Presents Fixate at 7:00 PM on July 20th, 2017. Tickets for this event can be found by clicking the link below.

Shaly Guo & Rong Zhang, RAW New York City Presents Fixate