Rei Kawakubo: Fifty years have been like a day, towards trend, towards all the pieces.

She rigorously examined the taking pictures necessities put ahead—which sequence and which type are essentially the most consultant; how can the mannequin, lighting, and surroundings higher current the clothes… After all the pieces was organized, she lastly took out the treasures within the archives with confidence, Wipe away the mud of time with us, and present the timeless masterpieces to the world once more.

It has been 50 years since Comme des Garçons was established in Tokyo in 1973. This quantity is a milestone for all the pieces, and it’s a cut-off date when you possibly can describe the which means and summarize the achievements with peace of thoughts. However for Rei Kawakubo, it is no completely different from daily that passes, “Since I am creating new garments on a regular basis, I at all times really feel like nothing is ideal, or completed, so there’s by no means a so-called A way of accomplishment.” On the age of 80, she remains to be as fearless and indomitable as she was when she overturned the Parisian trend trade.

Designer Rei Kawakubo

The story of Rei Kawakubo appears to have began in 1981. At the moment, eight years had truly handed since she based the model Comme des Garçons in Tokyo. If the timeline is prolonged and the digicam is zoomed out, we will see her learning artwork and aesthetics at Keio College, and she will see her doing analysis, amassing knowledge, and designing commercials within the promoting division of a textile producer. Till she left the corporate to turn out to be a contract designer. As if guided by some form of steering, her life and trend step by step approached like two parallel traces, till 1973 they fully overlapped and merged into a protracted river that flows to at the present time.

Though she shouldn’t be from an expert background, whether or not it’s due to her extraordinary expertise or her work expertise in a textile firm, making garments has been very logical and helpful for Rei Kawakubo from the very starting. She has acknowledged that she doesn’t remorse not in search of skilled trend coaching, as there’s sufficient time to cross by naturalWays to coach your eyes and develop your sense of magnificence. Right here’s what she remembers for us about her seldom-talked-about early days: “In a crew of two or three, I made the garments I needed to make, packed them in a journey bag, and offered them round to handsome All of those are executed on my own, together with shopping for materials, sending them to factories, and designing patterns.”

And she or he shouldn’t be happy with simply being in her hometown All this executed in silence. In 1981, Rei Kawakubo was decided to convey Comme des Garçons to a wider trend stage. As an intruder, she injects a heavy darkish colour into the colourful, romantic and light-weight Paris. The fashions on the runway wore black plain fabric wrapped round their our bodies in varied postures. It was boring, ragged, and even horrifying. It was very completely different from the imaginative and prescient of trend desires that had lengthy been rooted within the Western system. The style reporters on the present have been bewildered and puzzled, and unceremoniously wrote of their notebooks “catastrophe is about to occur”, “trend that appears poor”, “it is higher to put on once you go to the tax workplace to pay taxes” and so on. description.

Comme des Garçons 2023 Spring/Summer season Assortment

Wig Arai Takeo; Headgear Gary Card

At this second, we do not know Rei Kawakubo’s temper, but when we wish to make a daring guess If that’s the case, she have to be secretly happy with her seemingly calm expression. She by no means seeks approval, and even rejects understanding. As a result of if the garments you make might be accepted by everybody immediately, it signifies that you haven’t created something new. And the extremely hierarchical trend interface is of course instinctive to reject and criticize these obscure and uncontrollable new issues—everybody needs to be snug of their acquainted territory, refuses to vary, and is much more afraid of subversion.

Rei Kawakubo stated that she didn’t deliberately set off a change, however simply needed to problem a brand new declaration, and it occurred that her personal views have been completely different from others. The controversy she generated was monumental, and the eye she obtained was unprecedented. Jean Paul Gaultier, a designer identified for his daring and exaggerated avant-garde design aesthetics, stated: “This degree of shock is the primary time, the style at the moment was conventional and boring, and she or he introduced a really robust contemporary pressure. At the moment, Karl Lagerfeld, who was already affluent, additionally praised this peer, “Though he’ll see the ugly aspect, though he’ll really feel unfavourable feelings reminiscent of concern, he has a model new sense of magnificence.”

This “new magnificence” continues to be strengthened within the subsequent sequence, such asFor instance, in Comme des Garçons’ 1982 autumn and winter sequence “Holes”, the black jacket lined with giant and small holes was ridiculed by trend critic Suzy Menkes as a “Swiss cheese sweater”, however Rei Kawakubo known as it a “new type”. “Lace” is one other means to have a look at materials. She would not like the graceful and flawless industrial sense and not using a hint of flaws. This sort of “stuffed with loopholes”, such imperfections and unfinished issues are extra attention-grabbing and might higher exhibit the worth of strange issues. Rei Kawakubo by no means cared about these deep-rooted guidelines and laws, and even publicly acknowledged that she was not occupied with trend. “The one factor I’m occupied with is the brand-new and unprecedented garments themselves”; like an outsider wanting on the general state of affairs, she sneaked into the system On the heart of it, the aesthetic idea that has dominated for 100 years is shaken.

If there have been no information media, Rei Kawakubo won’t have supposed so as to add any rationalization to her creation. Comme des Garçons trend sequence earlier than 1981, there are virtually no written supplies, most of them do not even have names. It was not till she got here to Paris, going through the media with a mature working system, and going through the swarms of reporters, that she conceived a title for every sequence with the mentality of handing in homework. It isn’t a lot a query as a puzzle, which makes individuals extra puzzled whereas offering info—the 1983 spring and summer season sequence “Patchworks and X” (Patchworks and X), the 1987 spring and summer season sequence “younger trend, “Shoulderless” (Younger Stylish, No shoulder), 1987 autumn and winter sequence “White Shirt+Pants, Khaki, Lili Marleen” (White Shirt+Pants, Khaki, Lili Marleen)… some seemingly unrelated phrases have been randomly pieced collectively collectively. She could be very frank about this, saying that she doesn’t like to clarify clothes, whether or not it’s the manufacturing course of, or the theme or which means, as a result of work ought to communicate for itself, what you see and really feel is way extra essential than specious info vivid.

For instance, Comme des Garçons’ most iconic 1997 spring and summer season sequence “Physique Meets Costume – Costume Meets Physique” (Physique Meets Costume – Costume Meets Physique), the shoulders, waist, hips and different components of the garments Crammed with plentiful down, it seems like deformed lumps spreading from varied components. It not solely integrates with the physique, but additionally eliminates the form of the physique itself—horny, skinny, and plump. It’s tough to make use of any commonvocabulary to explain what you see. When the eyes are full, we won’t assist however begin to determine the design intention behind it. Is it about gender paradigms, in regards to the aesthetic requirements imposed by society on the human physique, or in regards to the relationship between clothes and the physique? In contrast with these impartial pondering processes, the ultimate reply is now not essential, Rei Kawakubo’s objective has been achieved. Style historian and curator Valerie Steele as soon as commented: “Her works have a form of violence, even a form of brutalism, making most trend at the moment look easy and vulgar. From that second on, avant-garde artwork emerged from the mainstream. Break up out and gallop in your individual route.” Though Rei Kawakubo was silent, it nonetheless stirred up ripples in her ideas.

Comme des Garçons 1997 Spring/Summer season Assortment

“Physique Meets Costume-Costume Meets Physique”

(Physique Meets Costume – Costume Meets Physique)

If this may consolation most of the people, journalists, and everybody who has skilled Rei Kawakubo’s reticence—she nonetheless hesitates to talk to the editors who’ve been working carefully along with her for many years Like gold. When there’s a prototype of the sequence in her thoughts, she’s going to use a number of obscure phrases or non-marginal descriptions, reminiscent of “the sting of the sting when altering the pillowcase”, “a form of crumpled cardboard that I performed with after I was a baby” Wait, come to speak with the sample maker, counting on tacit understanding to cross the baton of design.

Within the documentary “Rei Kawakubo’s Problem” launched by Japan’s NHK TV station in 2001, even a copywriter who has labored for Rei Kawakubo for greater than ten years, after receiving the “title” issued by her personally , will even present embarrassment. As a result of every time is a very completely different factor, there’s little or no reference knowledge left, and we will solely begin from scratch. The rationale for doing it’s because in Rei Kawakubo’s view, if the structure map is supplied immediately, everybody will undoubtedly comply with swimsuit, leaving no room for pondering and innovation. Subsequently, though the method of deciphering could be very painstaking, solely on this means can we collectively create one thing fully new.

On this 49-minute documentary, the climax is none apart from KawakuboLing’s “acceptance second” – that is the eve of the crew carrying garments from Tokyo to Paris to launch the brand new sequence. The sample makers pushed the gantry full of recent season samples to the preparation room. With the addition of fashions and garments, it turned crowded, and the staff of the manufacturing administration division additionally stood in a row towards the wall, ready to watch and study. There was pressure within the air, reaching its peak the second Rei Kawakubo pushed the door open. There was no expression on her face, identical to an neutral examiner, she checked out it rigorously after which left. At any time, she has a form of calmness and restraint, endowing insanity to her works and protecting her rationality to herself. She hardly ever pays consideration to issues exterior of the creation itself-the public’s expectations, exterior evaluations, and achievements. As she places it: “I haven’t got any explicit feeling for what individuals consider Comme des Garçons. How individuals really feel once they see and put on the garments is a end result, however not my objective. I am simply interested by creating new issues Up.”

Comme des Garçons 2009 Spring/Summer season Assortment

Tomorrow’s Black

Headdress Julien d’Ys

In 2017, Rei Kawakubo turned The theme of the annual exhibition on the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York. That is the second time within the Met’s historical past that the Metropolitan Museum has held a solo exhibition for a residing dressmaker, after Yves Saint Laurent in 1983. In negotiations with the curator Andrew Bolton, she confessed that she didn’t desire a retrospective exhibition, as a result of she regretted lots of the garments she had made. If attainable, it’s best to solely exhibit the seven newest collections from the spring and summer season of 2014. , as a result of “they’re in the identical place as my present pondering and belong to this second”. After all, ultimately, each events compromised—Bolton curated the exhibition within the type of a thematic narrative, whereas Rei Kawakubo offered the consultant works of Comme des Garçons from the Eighties to the current.

Comme des Garçons 2014 Spring/Summer season Assortment

“Not Making Clothes”

In comparison with the self-deprecating motive of “I remorse the garments I made”, the extra rooted motive could also be that Rei Kawakubo is an individual who lives within the current and doesn’t simply look again on the previous. As a result of she is aware of that if she needs to If you happen to maintain creating one thing unprecedented, you can’t be hindered by previous expertise. If you wish to journey evenly, you need to let go of the burden. In contrast with the outdated trend homes that regard the archives extra essential than anything, she avoids the treasures amassed for half a century. It’s not sufficient, as a result of it’s too wealthy, in order that taking a spoonful of it is sufficient to irrigate a complete trend sequence. However she refuses to indulge herself in doing so, as a result of solely really unfamiliar and contemporary concepts can convey the motivation to create and be pushed. The which means on this world. As a grasp that numerous individuals look as much as, every bit of clothes she designed has been studied repeatedly, and each sentence she stated has been learn repeatedly. Does this convey a way of accomplishment and stress? “I solely care about How I reside now and the way I really feel now”, she stated.

This reply, so surprising, so cheap. As her fellow avant-garde artist Cindy Sherman stated, Rei Kawakubo “would not reply to anybody expectations”. She took the initiative to dispel the grand, significant and beautiful phrases positioned on her by the surface world. For instance, naming her model “like a boy” (Comme des Garçons’ Chinese language interpretation) doesn’t imply that she advocates feminism. I identical to the rhythm of the collision of those French phrases; for instance, the avant-garde methods reminiscent of frequent deconstruction don’t imply that she is a postmodernist, however a realist who has studied materials and methods down-to-earth; for instance, she has been making garments for 40 years , within the Spring/Summer season 2014 assortment, she determined to start out a brand new chapter with the ironic title “Not Making Clothes”.

Comme des Garçons 2023 Spring/Summer season Assortment

Wig Arai Takeo; Headgear Valeriane Venance

It’s virtually unattainable for Rei Kawakubo to precise her “reflections” on the previous 50 years. From a enterprise centered on Comme des Garçons, together with a number of sub-line manufacturers Empire, to a boutique based along with her husband Adrian JoffeThe pioneer Dover Road Market, she used essentially the most plain language to sum up this uncommon journey merely as “making garments, operating a enterprise about making garments, after which strange human life itself. Nothing is ideal, all the pieces is ideal. unfinished”. However on the identical time, she additionally stated that although the buildup of time and expertise makes innovation increasingly difficult, she “will proceed to look and imagine that some new inspirations can nonetheless be discovered”, as a result of when she touches “a brand new thought , a world you have got by no means seen earlier than”, you’ll really feel a robust gushing out of power.

After I arrived in Paris in early 1981, even well-informed individuals within the trade have been confused when confronted with Comme des Garçons-is this trend? In an interview in 2001, Rei Kawakubo stated: “It has been a few years now, (for my works) individuals’s idea has modified from ‘barely wearable issues’ to ‘lovely garments’, ‘and extra I might be very comfortable if younger individuals can really feel and settle for this.” At this second, greater than 20 years have handed, and though many individuals nonetheless have doubts about 1981, there are extra Persons are impressed and resonate along with her works. Rei Kawakubo might not want these understandings, as a result of she has already plunged into the creation of recent issues; however younger people who find themselves thirsty for data want them, the up to date and iterative trend trade wants them, and the wants of an more and more numerous fashionable society.