"Since founding Comme des Garçons in 1969, the Tokyo-based designer Rei Kawakubo (born 1942) has consistently defined and re-defined the aesthetics of our time. Season after season she upends conventional notions of beauty and disrupts accepted characteristics of the fashionable body. Her fashions not only stand apart from the genealogy of clothing but also resist definition and confound interpretation. They can be read as Zen koans (riddles) devised to baffle, bewilder or bemuse. At the heart of her work are the koan mu (emptiness) and ma (space), which coexist in the concept of "in-between". This reveals itself as an aesthetic sensibility that establishes an unsettling zone of visual ambiguity and elusiveness."
Excerpt of the exhibition brochure which may assist in finding a deeper understanding of her work.
Garments from her current collection.
These are the Bridal dresses from the Birth/Marriage/Death Collection
If they look too conventional to you, look closely! The side part is a digital print of pleated and crushed fabric! Black tulle sewn on.
Rather confronting garment of this collection. Birth is represented by little Christening gowns sewn in the dress.
More light hearted are these dresses joined by a zip.
Upholstery fabric was used here
Design/Not design Collection
Self/Other Collection
Order /Chaos Collection
Object/Subject Collection
"I wasn't limited to the confines of a pattern. Not being educated, not being taught how to design, I was able to visualise in a completely different context. And I still seem to be able to draw upon the unconventional".
I hope you enjoyed this trip to the Met and the feeling challenged by these unusual garments. I always admire women who are prepared to step out, take risks and are prepared to confront. Rei certainly does that.
As always the blog works in conjunction with my Instagram posts, so as to avoid repetitio further images can be found there. If you are a real fashionsta and want to see the entire collection, do contact me and I will send you the rest of the images.
I have promised a post on Indigo in South Carolina, which I am in the process of putting together.
As I am still travelling on the longest way home ever, (4days), I am looking forward to getting back into a routine, preparing the next workshops and commission.
B x