Rei Kawakubo
Rei Kawakubo (1942). Japanese designer. She is Madame Comme des Garµons, a griffe established in 1969. She was born in Tokyo, the eleventh of october 1949, where she began her career in fashion working in a textile company. In 1981 her first Paris Collection upset the prêt-à-porter scene with an emphasis on pauperism that seemed to propose rags rather than dresses. The models were pale, uncombed girls, wrapped in layers of fabrics that had nothing to do with elegance. In addition, everything was stressed by black, a sort of color-philosophy which creates anguish and anxiety. Her shows seem to boast decadence, shabbiness: actually, it is a style made of subtle references, of clothes which break rules, create the unexpected. She herself says: “A fundamental element of my career was the fact of living it as a means of being exposed to the reaction of the public.” Cultivated and always closer to art than to the concept of products for the clothing market, she is the priestess of minimalism, in the past as well as in the present, the avant-garde of poor stylism. Her fashion is the expression of her coherence. She detests decorations and is indifferent to seasonal trends: she is not influenced by the ideas of others, but starts every time from the beginning. The facts say she is in the right: she has fans all over the world, even men, for whom she can get away with designing suits featuring female patterns.
She says: “Masculinity can be expressed with flowers, you just have to work around it.”
She sees fashion as an escape from daily chores, a desire for freedom, especially within oneself. Western and Eastern elements, tailoring volumes and researching materials are her favorite ingredients: she is a voice outside the choir, representing free inventions that sometimes let themselves be seduced by “the complete opposite,” but a he-she mix, in which the tailcoat is enriched with ruches and the blouse’s frills stress the rigor of the tie. This is an exception which is not a rule: if one looks at the steps she has taken, it is evident how her ideas have always been ahead of the field, and have become current concepts. She is far from the mass, a little mysterious, charming but enigmatic. The designer has influenced fashion by sweeping away stereotyped images and setting a completely different look. More than describing her models, you breathe the atmosphere, one that has affected the younger generations and stirred criticism by those traditionalists unable to see in her Collections a boundless creativity, both in fabrics and in colors.
Her proposals are always subdued in tone, in particular in her knitwear: turtlenecks with checked longuettes, alternative yet simple and refined sportswear. Or plaid patterns for Empire-style midi-dresses, swaying skirts matched with pale blouses. And a sort of do-it-yourself style, with rolled-up jersey panels tied around the body. A continuous discovery in the name of the poor: it is here that Rei Kawakubo expresses her power. She creates a brave and revolutionary fashion design, an anarchy that destroys the old rules and creates new ones.
For the Fall-Winter Collection 2001-2002, presented in the Wagram salon of Paris, the designer launched the “erotic woman” by Comme des Garµons. To the music of Je t’aime, moi non plus by Serge Gainsbourg, models displayed lingerie-dresses shaped as petticoats, with bras worn over the jackets.
2003. She experimented with collaborations with dance groups and big names in international photography.
The Met Celebrates Comme des Garçons
In 2017, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York staged the exhibition Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. The exhibition was curated as a minimalist journey featuring 150 creations that narrated the aesthetic of the maison from 1981, the year of its first runway show in Paris, to the present day. The exhibition was complemented by the release of a book-album (published by the Met and distributed by Yale University Press), curated by Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute, with art direction by Fabien Baron. It was a narrative in 205 images, specially crafted for the occasion by renowned photographers such as Paolo Roversi, Kazumi Kurigami, and Collier Schoor.
In May 2019, Kawakubo was honored with the Isamu Noguchi Award, becoming the first fashion designer to receive the award. Created in 2014, the award recognizes innovative artists who follow in Noguchi’s footsteps by bridging Eastern and Western cultures.
The 2020s
After 2020, Comme des Garçons continued to be a pillar of innovation in fashion under the direction of Rei Kawakubo. The fashion house presented collections characterized by a blend of conceptualism and creative audacity. Kawakubo explored themes such as freedom, rebellion, and imagination, employing exaggerated volumes, unusual materials, and experimental aesthetics. The runway shows became avant-garde spectacles, challenging fashion conventions and pushing the boundaries of sartorial art.
Rei Kawakubo’s latest collection for Comme des Garçons, presented at Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2024, is an explosion of freedom and joy. Featuring vibrant colors, playful shapes, and bold silhouettes, the collection draws inspiration from childlike creativity. With neon graphics, tartan patterns, and sculptural elements like enormous Peter Pan collars and trapezoidal shapes, Kawakubo challenges fashion and societal norms, celebrating unbounded innovation and imagination.