Kaisik Wong

Kaisik Wong (1950 – July 13, 1990) was a Chinese-American fashion designer. He was best known for his patchwork vest, which was plagiarized for Balenciaga's Spring/Summer 2002 collection.

Wong emerged from San Francisco wearable art movement in the early 1970s and was active until his death from leukemia in 1990. He created avant-garde garments for celebrities such as Salvador Dalí, Anjelica Huston, Elton John, and Tina Turner. His clothing was sold at Henri Bendel, I. Magnin, and Obiko.

Life and career Wong was born and raised in San Francisco's Chinatown neighborhood. His father was an accountant and his mother a homemaker from New Orleans. By the age of 14, Wong was silk-screening fabrics and making his own clothes, shoes, and accessories. At the urging of his art teacher, Wong dropped out of high school at 15 and studied at the Pacific Fashion Institute in San Francisco.

Wong collaborated with filmmaker Steven F. Arnold, protégé of Salvador Dalí, to create costumed for the Cockettes. This led to collaborations with Dali himself. Wong created costumes for Dali and exhibited his creations at the opening of Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueras, Spain in 1974. Wong often appeared in public dressed in full costume as a mythological Chinese trickster called the Monkey King, a role he played for Dali. His partner Jesus Santiago also designed with him. He also produced garments for Henri Bendel.

Wong, who was HIV positive, died of leukemia at age 40 on July 13, 1990 at St. Luke's hospital. He is buried at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma, California.

From December 1995 to March 1996, the exhibit True Couture: The Wearable Art of Kasik Wong was on display at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. The design was a 1973 patchwork vest that appeared in a 1974 reference book Native Funk & Flash. "I'm very flattered that people are looking at my sources of inspiration. This is how I work. I've always said I'm looking at vintage clothes." Ghesquière said. After the controversy, Cameron Silver's vintage boutique Decades on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles celebrated the work of Wong. Silver assembled Live the Fantasy, a retrospective exhibit and sale of pieces from the Wong family collection. The patchwork vest was the only garment not for sale, it was later included in the exhibition Iconic to Ironic: Fashioning California Identity at the Oakland Museum of California.