“When I was a child, I often thought about death,” the Chinese couturier Guo Pei said recently. She was talking about her autumn/winter 2019–20 collection, “Alternate Universe.” Guo Pei is known for extravagant, often over-the-top creations—she’s the designer who crafted Rihanna’s storied yellow 2015 Met Gala gown. Now she grapples with the mysterious question, in her words, of “Where do we go?” The collection debuted last summer at Paris Couture Week, and now comes to London’s V&A for the 20th anniversary of its Fashion in Motion series. The public is invited to see three presentations of Pei’s collection, in which themes of life and death are stitched into Pei’s grand designs. —J.V.