Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons : Japanese fashion visionary

If you are into design and style, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons will ring a couple of bells as she has been heralded as a single of the most influential luminaries in her field. Ever given that she debuted in Paris in 1981, she has succeeded in blurring the divide among art and style and transformed predominant notions of beauty, identity, and the body.

Her fashions not only stand apart from the progenitur of clothes but also resist and actively defy labelling and clichés. Her work is centered on the idea behind the notion of the “in-between”, which according to her method is situated in between space and emptiness.NYC’s MET Costume Institute’s spring 2017 exhibition examined the perform of style designer Rei Kawakubo, who is not unknown for being an agent provocateur challenging the status quo and what is regarded as to be excellent practice by the mainstream.

The show that was primarily based on the theme of “in-amongst-ness” featured about one hundred and fifty exhibits of the womenswear Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garçons have become known for, not only stopping at current collections but dating back to the 1980s to her most recent collections.The galleries illustrated the designer’s endeavours in the space between boundaries, which are infused with a gusto for revolution.Objects were organized into the nine core concepts behind her aestheticism:

• Absence/Presence
• Design and style/Not Style
• Fashion/Anti-Fashion
• Model/Numerous
• Then/Now
• Higher/Low
• Self/Other
• Object/Topic
• Clothes/Not Garments

What Kawakubo accomplishes, is tearing down what is perceived to separate the aforementioned dualisms and exposing those barriers for what they are: Artificial and arbitrary. As 1 who is remotely familiar with Kawakubo’s oeuvre, the show was challenging, with the astonishing garments, installation design and catalog forming an unrivaled juggernaut breaking down barriers amongst art and style, that is in book kind articulated by Andrew Bolton and photography by Nicholas Alan Cope, Inez & Vinoodh, Katerina Jebb, Kazumi Kurigami, Ari Marcopoulos, Craig McDean, Brigitte Niedermair, Paolo Roversi, and Collier Schorr This catalogue is meant to accompany The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute exhibition, which was centered about Kawakubo’s definition of fashion: “What I’ve only ever been interested in are clothes that 1 has by no means seen just before, that are entirely new, and how in what way they can be expressed. Is that referred to as fashion? I don’t know the answer.” – Rei Kawakubo. This lavishly illustrated publication weaves an illuminating narrative about Kawakubo’s experiments in oppositions and the spaces between boundaries.Kawakubo regards her fashions and their environments as a Gesamtkunstwerk, i.e. a “total work of art.” This synthesis of the exhibition and this book is therefore designed as a total expression of the Comme des Garc?ons “universe.” It is intended to be a holistic, immersive expertise, facilitating a individual engagement with Kawakubo’s emissions.Brilliant new photographs of a lot more than 120 examples of Kawakubo’s womenswear for Comme des Garçons accompanied by Kawakubo’s commentary on her designs and process reveal her conceptual and challenging aesthetic as rarely carried out ahead of.

A chronology of Kawakubo’s profession gives additional context, and an insightful conversation with the author delivers a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts of this Japanese fashion visionary. The book includes a bonus foldout poster featuring 2 Dimensions, autumn/winter 2012–13 and Invisible Clothing, spring/summer time 2017. A book that is minimal, arresting, and impossibly chic eye candy photography not just for hardcore style aficionados but one particular that can be appreciated by many artistic disciplinarians and a single that offers insight into Kawakubo’s approach and considering.