a fashion nyth. Supposcd|y. on thc nna| day. aftcr thc nna| sa|c. in a sccrct |ocation.

thc
remaining stock, the stuff absolutely no one in the world wanted even reduced in price by 80
pcrccnt. is burncd in a giant bonnrc so as to not cnd up in sonc connon out|ct shop. Lvcn
if this ta|c isn`t truc. cou|dn`t wc havc thc nrc for thc nrst tinc for rca| at ny a|tinorc shop:
1hink of thc anazing photograph! Cou|dn`t hci |ight thc nrst natch hcrsc|f: 1hink of thc
polyester-and-rayon-polluted smoke drifting over the Armistead Gardens neighborhood
and the magic spell it could possibly cast on the unsuspecting neighbors. The ecstasy of
rejection, the raptures of unavailability, and the open-sesame of Reis vision could turn
this beautiful downscale section of Baltimore into an international fashion mecca.
Rei, I have a wish list for you. I know youre busy. I realize you dont take notes (the
ncw n-word for a|| n|n dircctors). but I |ust havc sonc idcas for futurc outnts that I wou|d
happily pay you too much money for. I hate weddings; Ive never had fun at one in my life.
I know youve designed a black wedding dress with a white veil, and it was so cutting-edge
Modern Bride. But how about something for me to wear to a wedding to take my mind off
the romance pressure I feel pulsating around me? Something secret, because Im not a rude
pcrson and you ncvcr want your outnt to upstagc thc bridc`s or groon`s. How about an
elegant black wool Vincent Price-type suit: on the outside so seemingly con ser va tive and
beautifully tailored, but inside lined with the fur of the mice who were living and nesting
under the hood of my car in my garage, nibbling away at the engines wiring harness and
causing about a thousand dollars worth of damage? Wearing fur coats always makes one
look like an old person, but poisoned or trapped mouse-fur lining seems politically correct
to me, especially when the same little fuckers had friends who were setting up house inside
the exterior air-conditioning compressor of my Baltimore home and chewing on the wiring.
If we hadnt discovered these little Ben and Willard movie-type wannabes and had turned
on thc coo|ing systcn thc nrst hot day. thcsc unwc|conc squattcrs wou|d havc bccn ground
up by the motor fan blades and their death fumes would have been piped into my home in all
their decomposed glory. So what better purpose could their deaths have than to be recycled
as fashion? Even their little heads could be designed as buttons for the inside pockets!
Lets talk about the suit pants. Couldnt they have faux scraped knees? You like to
see people fall down heres the perfect reminder for your customer of the one thing that
gives you plea sure. Youve already done shirts with triple collars, but how about one with
an extra arm that hangs in the back under the coat that nobody but me would see or know
about? Of course the tie, an item of clothing I love and you seem to rarely design, should
be covered with clever soup stains. We know how hard and expensive it is to properly clean
a tie, so you can now charge double the price and it will still be a deal, because youd never
have to take it to the dry cleaners.
My dream socks that you would create only for me would be mismatched and stretched
out with holes where the big toe sticks through (summer socks, we used to call these
castaways). Your belts would go around me twice and would be tested for possible
autoerotic strangulation use. It would be too vulgar to ask you to design faux skidmark
underwear, so how about white boxers stained from purposely washing them with a load
of brightly colored laundry?
ut. hci. ny nna| wish is a pair of crccpi|y sophisticatcd faux fic `N fay shocs that I hopc
you`|| dcsign for nc to wcar insidc ny c|oscd (as ny wi|| dcnands) cofnn. Likc thc oncs thc
Moe Howard look-alike, the shoe bomber, wore that day on the airplane. Scruffy, ugly
oxfords whose hideousness has been negated by your relentless sobriety, as the critics
have written. Shoes with wires and fuses hanging off them. And real dynamite inside. Scary
and aggrcssivc footwcar - thc pcrfcct acccssory to ny nna| outnt. 1hc worns go in. thc
worms go out; the worms play pinochle on my snout. Now Ill be ready to blast off into
Comme des Garons heaven.
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A
ADVERTISING
Alice Rawsthorn: Comme des Garonss
Shirt campaigns are a beacon of inspired
eccentricity. Since they be gan 11 years
ago, the ads have featured everything
fron iccbcrgs. grafnti. b|ucs |yrics. 16th-
century Flemish paintings, trucks, dogs,
birds, vintage pins, cave paintings, trucks,
dogs, street photography, Pet Shop Boys
lyrics, underground comics, punk poetry,
shredded 1970s porn, the winners of a
literary booby prize for the worst open-
ing sentences of novels, a recycled trade
advertising campaign, bizarre amateur
inventions and the self-portraits of an
unknown Danish amateur artist to
once but only once a bunch of people
actually wearing shirts.
Ronnie Cooke Newhouse: Ive al-
ways been a big big, fan of Reis. I was
one of four people who started Details
maga zine in the 1980s. Rei was a sort
of demigod to us, and we were one of the
nrst nagazincs to covcr hcr. if not thc
nrst in Ancrica. Whcn I |atcr bccanc
creative director of Barneys (the New
York department store) I got to know
hci and Adrian Joffc. Wc staycd in touch
when I left Barneys, and when I opened
my (design) studio in London they spoke
to me about working with them.
Alice Rawsthorn: Perhaps because the
Shirt campaigns are conceived by a cre-
ative director who edits the contents
from ready-made imagery rather than by
the fashion designer and photographer
who produce them, the only consistent
thing about them is their inconsistency.
Yet collectively they build a compelling
portrait of the brand as well as of its
creators and the people who will wear the
clothes.
Alice Rawsthorn, CDG Advertisements,
Paradis #5, Fall/Winter 2009.
ANIMAL
I LOVE
ALL
ANIMALS.
Rei Kawakubo in Ronnie Cooke Newhouse,
Rei Kawakubo, Interview Magazine,
November 2008.
ANTI-FASHION
In addition to consistently creating col-
lections of clothes that challenge other
designers to think outside con ventional
modes of production and beauty, Rei
Kawakubo has also built a considerable
international busi ness. In this sense, her
con tribution could never be regarded
as outside or anti the fashion industry,
though at times its aesthetic may appear
to be delightfully at odds with prevailing
trends.
Penny Martin, The Power of Witches,
Showstudio, 2004.
AOYAMA
The Tokyo neighborhood is the origin
and continued nucleus of the Comme
des Garons universe, where the labels
nrst storc opcncd in 1976. and honc to
this datc of its ofnccs. studios and no-
ther uagship.
ARCHITECTURE
Architecture has been largely unable to
accept the excessive and formless nature
of shopping. So declared Rem Kool-
haas, et al, in a well-known book from
2002. But since the late Seventies and
Lightics. whcn shc opcncd hcr nrst.
thcn-radica||y ninina|ist boutiqucs -
one was entirely empty, a stunt others
are still repeating more than two
decades later Rei Kawakubo has been
bringing both excess and formlessness to
architecture. Consider her store design
heyday of the 1990s and early Noughts
a golden era of blue-dotted glass
and swooping hand-brushed aluminum
(Tokyo Aoyama and New York Chelsea,
respectively, both designed by Future
Systems); of spinning stools in shocking
red (Paris, by Ab Rogers and Shona
Kitchen); of monolithic black (Kyoto,
attributed to Kawakubo herself).
Working with other designers or
norc frcqucnt|y. with hcr |ongtinc co|-
|aborator. thc Japancsc architcct 1akao
Kawasaki Kawakubo has brought to
retail architecture the same brilliantly
warped, twisted sensibility that shes
given her fashion. That is to say, in
her hands, the body becomes just as
deformed as the space it in ha bits with
the result being, often enough, elusive.
Her temporary Comme des Garons
guerilla stores can be given credit (or
blame) for the recent pop-up shop mania.
Her Dover Street Mar ket, with all its tin-
shack and Porta-Potty accoutrements,
blurs the distinc tion bet ween department
storc. |ux ury uagship and uca narkct.
With Kawakubo. you`rc ncvcr quitc surc
where the thing itself begins and the idea
of it ends; her shops are less like spaces
than, well, concepts (but please dont call
them concept shops).
Which is why Kawakubo has in many
ways been one of the most in te resting
architects around. To be sure, her stores
have been chockfull of spatial acrobatics;
but they have just as easily disappeared.
Koolhaas may have had his epicenters
(as hc ca||cd his frada uagships). but
Kawakubo was onc of thc nrst to rca|izc
that architecture, like shopping and fa-
shion. is uccting.
ARIC CHEN, design critic, for 032c.
ARRIVAL
I never
inten ded to start
a revolution.
I only came to
Paris with the
intention of
showing what
I thought was
strong and
beautiful. It just
happened that
my notion was
different from
everyone else!s.
Rei Kawakubo in Judith Thurman,
"The Misft," The New Yorker, July 4, 2005.
Its a choice, one that implies a different
approach. French eroticism stands no
chance inthis game, as the sensitive points
of our feminine mythology waist, hips,
thighs - arc quitc sinp|y avoidcd
French journalist on seeing a Comme des Garons
collection in 1984, cited by Olivier Saillard, Muse
des Arts Dcoratifs (Paris) 2010.
AVANT-GARDE
Rei Kawakubo believes that being avant-
garde has become a clich.
B
BASQUIAT, JEAN-MICHEL
Jcan-Hichc| asquiat. nodc|. on thc Connc dcs
Garons runway; Paris, Spring-Summer 1987
BERLIN
Joffc and I spcnt a day in cr|in at a
CommedesGaronsguerillastore,which
then occupied the former book shop of
the Brecht Museum, on a seedy block in
the eastern sector of the city. It is part
of an experiment in alternative retailing
(inconspicuous consumption) which the
company launched in 2004 Each of
the stores is an ephemeral installation
that opens without fanfare and closes af-
ter a year. Their decorating budgets are
less than the price of some handbags
at GUCCI and PRADA and original
fixtures, including raw cinder blocks
and peeling wallpaper, are left as they
are found. Brecht might have approved
the poetic clothes and the proletarian
mise en scne, if not the insurrectionary
conceit. But the word guerilla as Rei
undcrstands it isn`t po|itica|.` Joffc says.
It refers to a small group of likeminded
spirits at odds with the majority. Shes
fascinated by the Amish, for example and
thc Orthodox Jcws.`
Thurman, 2005.
BROKEN BRIDE
Universally admired collection, Autumn/
Winter 2005. The audience received its
pre sentation at the Ecole des Beaux Arts
with a seven-minute ovation. Through it,
Kawakubo remained backstage.
It wasnt simply a collection about wed-
dings. a|thoughthat nayhavcbccnthcnrst
word. By breaking the rules of wedding
dresses, by going behind the idea, there
was born the further information that
marriage is not necessarily happy.
Rei Kawakubo in Suzy Menkes, Positive
Energy: Comme at 40, The New York Times,
Junc 8. 2009.
1hc nrst Connc dcs Carons storc in thc
world, 1976
Tokyo
New York
Edited by SULEMAN ANAYA and JOERG KOCH
000 000
BUSINESS
Unlike many fashion designers who
nnd thcnsc|vcs cnbcddcd in industria|
or nnancia| cong|oncratcs. Kawakubo
is president of her own company of
450 employees and retains overall res -
ponsibility for both creative and busi-
ness decisions. Nothing she does is an
indulgence; all her work is part of a
carefully considered strategy in which
economic success is an essential part of
maintaining her creative independence.
Sudjic, 1990.
* Shes in control of every facet of her
multimillion-dollar brand Comme des
Garons. 1his nc||iuuous phrasc cha-
rac terizes a philosophy of freedom when
it comes to clothing construction as
well as presentation style and marketing
strategy.
Dolores Slowinski, Fashion is not Art,
Detroit Metro Times, February 2008.
* As the fashion industry was being turned
upside down by the Great Recession of
2008, desperately slashing prices and
cutting costs, Rei Kawakubo chose a
different strategy altogether. She laun-
ched Comme des Garons Black, a brand
new recession-friendly collection that
re prised the best selling styles from the
brands archive at honest price points.
It was a characteristically business-savvy
move by a designer who has deftly ma-
nagcd thc nnc |inc bctwccn crcativity
and commerciality. Loyal fans of the
brand kept coming back to Comme des
Garons, even if times were tough and
money was tight.
Not all of Kawakubos avant-garde
peers have fared as well. Despite his
immense creative talent, the recession
brought Yohji Yamamotos business to
its knees, just before it was saved at the
|ast ninutc by a privatc cquity invcstor.
On the other end of the spectrum,
fashion gcnius Hartin Hargic|a quict|y
left his eponymous label when its owner,
Staff International, began the crass com-
mercialisation which served to alienate
Margielas core cult customer base, even
if it managed to grow the business top
line revenues.
So whats the secret to Comme des
Garons success?
Kawakubo has been discreetly buil-
ding a multi-brand fashion business, all
under the Comme des Garons banner.
From the runway collection to Comme
des Garons Black to Play Comme des
Garons, a healthy fragrance business
including collaborations with Daphne
Cuinncss and Stcphcn Joncs. as wc|| on-
going CdC |abc|s for Junya Watanabc.
Fumito Ganryu and Tao Kurihara,
there is plenty of choice for all types of
consumers. And all of it offers a special
piece of that Comme des Garons spirit,
unadulterated. In short, Kawakubo has
maintained her fashion integrity, while
building an enviable global fashion bu-
si ness as well.
Kawakubo once told Suzy Menkes,
It is true to say that I design the com-
pany, not just clothes. Creation does not
end with just the clothes. New interes-
ting business ideas, revolutionary retail
stra tegies, unexpected collaborations,
nurturing of in-house talent, all are ex-
amples of Comme des Garons cre-
ation. Perhaps this is the most important
point of all. Rather than seeing busi ness-
thinking as a blight on the face of her
conceptual approach to fashion, she views
it as central to her creative process.
IMRANAMED, Founder and Editor in Chief,
The Business of Fashion, for 032c
*
If as Andy
Warhol
proposed,
"Business art
is the step
after art,!
Comme des
Garons is
its fashion
manifestation.
Kawakubo is a fascinating anomaly, sin-
ce her artistic practice remains legible
and assertive, even in the context of its
uncompromised commercial intent. The
disparate parts of her business the ar-
chitccturc and nxturcs of hcr shops. thc
typography of her graphic programs, the
siting of hcr boutiqucs. thc co||abora-
tion with artists, photographers, musi-
cians, and architects, the selection of her
em ployees, the unconventional models in
her runway presentations and their hair
and make-up, even her terse epi gram-
matic responses in interviews comprise
a unincd pro|cct.
Harold Koda, Rei Kawakubo and the
Art of Fashion, Refusing Fashion exhibition
catalogue, MOCAD2008.
* As Sonya Park, a stylist in Tokyo who
knows Kawakubo well, said recently,
Shc nakcs hcr pront so that shc can
do something new the next season. Its
always about the next project.
Cathy Horyn, Gang of Four,
The New York Times, February 24, 2008.

C
CELEBRATION
I went to the Comme des Garons shop
in Aoyama to see if there was a dress I
could wear for the Pritzker ceremony.
And I asked one of the store salesperson
if there was anything good to wear for
the ceremony. He kindly informed that
to Kawakubo-san, and Kawakubo-san
suggested to make something special for
thc spccia| occasion. Shc nrst showcd
me some dresses from last collection
and they were all so beautiful. She gave
me some advice on which dress would
look good on me. Kawakubo-san made
some ad|ustncnts to nt to ny body and
made it very special. It was such an ho-
nor for me to wear that dress at the
Pritzker ceremony. I received so many
compliments from many people at the
ceremony for the dress!
SLJIHA KA2IYO. principa|. SANAA. to 032c.
Interview by Vicente Gutierrez.
CHAMPIONS
Ten world records were broken by the
U.S. mens swimming team during the
2008BeijingOlympics. All wereachieved
in suits fron thc Spccdo L2h haccr |inc
with graphics by Comme des Garons.
The suit was developed in association
with the Australian Institute of Sport.
NASAs wind tunnel testing facilities,
and Ansys uuid uow ana|ysis softwarc
supported the design. (wikipedia.org)
COLLABORATION
Not that she ever approaches such a
project as a brainstorming or a meeting of
the minds. Its more the case of a willful
designer making a strong proposition
with a partner who brings something
new to the table, like production know-
how or distribution muscle.
Miles Socha, Comme and Go,
W, September 2008.
In the playful rulebook of the house of
Comme des Garons, collaboration has
always been a cortex for the companys
inner sapience and variously articulated
modi operandi. Rarely logical, these mu-
tual efforts go beyond even their own
expected aesthetic promises, issuing
forth precise branding statements, and
opening new outlets for the labels con-
tinuous expansion not to mention
the added value they also give to guest
crusaders.
For more than 40 years, the company
has elaborated a myriad of surprising
and unexpected collaborative threads
that few art or fashion historians could
sufncicnt|y docuncnt. In|cashcd fron
an understanding of market-trend value,
but also somehow solely guided by Rei
Kawakubos progressionist love of all
things cultural, artistic, and emotional,
Commes collaborations are rarely exe-
cuted at the behest of others (you never
rcqucst. you arc a|ways invitcd - sonc-
how mirroring the pyramidal structure
of the company itself). Still and all, the
list is endless
Theres photography (Cindy Sher-
man, DaidoMoriyama, Collier Schorr );
sculpture and installation (Fischli/Weiss,
RomanSigner, Felix Gonzales-Torres);
advertisement (pretty much all of the pre-
viously men tioned above and below!);
set design (Cary Card. Jan dc Cock);
dance (Merce Cunningham with Sce-
nario [1997]); music (Seigen Ono,
Ar to Lind say); architecture (among
many, a recent project is Kazuyo Sejima
[of SAANA] for Comme des Garons
[2009]); media (Visionaire 20 [1997],
a visual interview with Kawakubo
as thc pub|ication`s nrst gucst cditor;
Vogue Nippon X Comme des Garons
Tokyo shop, featuring Chanel [2009];
A Magazine Curated by Jun Takahashi
Undercover [2006]; Werk No. 10 in
col laboration with Colette [2004]);
product and retail partnerships (Comme
des Garons X THE BEATLES with
Apple Corps Ltd. [2009], Milans 10
Corso Como replica in Tokyo, Colette
meets Comme des Garons, the Paris
Tokyo Speedconnexion, H&M, Louis
Vuitton); creative direction (Christian
Astuguevielle, the Comme des Garons
PARFUMS creative director since 1992;
advertising conception with art director
Tsugaya Inoue); and tutti quanti
Not only do Commes collaborations
span many enthusiastically welcomed
and established bodies of work in con-
temporary art and retail; they also in-
clude slightly unknown practices that
seem to incarnate Kawakubos more
personal fas cinations. Illustrator Filip
Pagowski created the PLAY CDG logo,
and the highly-celebrated, successful
com mercial line has gone on to col la-
bo rate with many more illustrators and
patternmakers. Kawakubos interest in
documenting ethnic identities led to
Brian Giffins photography of young
Georgian women dressed in CDG in
the birth village of the late primitivist
painter Niko Pirosmani (18621918).
Unearthing the work of female artists,
both past and present, is also a mark of
Comme and Kawakubo, and includes
Pritzker Architecture Prize ceremony,
Ellis Island, New York, May 17, 2010
Hichac| fhc|ps in L2h haccr suit
000 000
a |oint cffort with onc of thc nrst gi|d-
bronze costume jewelry designers, Line
\autrin (1913-1997). as wc|| as an ho-
mage to the French photographer and
writer Claude Cahun (18941954). In
1992, Ndebele artist Esther Mahlangu
created installations for Comme stores in
Tokyo, Paris, and New York.
In 1988, Kawakubo launched her
nrst stunt effort in print, Six magazine,
which pushed the frontiers of art and
fashion photography to spectacular re -
sults. The publication showcased exten-
sive portfolios by leading photographers
such as Peter Lindbergh, Paolo Roversi,
Steven Meisel, and 1inothy Crccnnc|d
Sanders, as well as multiple portraits and
images by and of artists and designers,
including Louise Nevelson, Jancs Lcc
Byars, Gilbert & George, Azzedine
Alaa As an ongoing extension of Six
and not even to mention CDG PAPER,
which is distributed to the companys
staff worldwide the houses direct
mailings always incorporate the power
of art and visual culture. In 1994,
Kawakubo wished Happy New Year
to her merry followers with an image
extract the So viet-Armenian director
Sergei Parajanovs 1968 n|n. The Color
of Pomegranates. An extension of the
Mail art movement that originated in
thc 1960s: fotcntia||y. ut dcnnitc|y a
recurrent statement of the brands philo-
sophy as a global communication vector.
And let us not forget the houses
fc||ow dcsigncrs (Junya Watanabc. 1ao
Kurihara, Ganryu, and, to an extent,
the prodigal son, UNDERCOVERs
Jun 1akahashi) arc frcc|y cxprcssing
their personal vision through multiple
labels inside CDG, as well as through
retail. It starts and ends by being so-
lely about mutual understanding and
support, through which Comme des
Garons global label extends as a thin-
king method into a media of savoir-faire.
This generosity brings not only eco no-
mic power, but also new platforms of
expression and diffusion to the labels
invited participants.
Its all done for the simple love-value
of the good, and for what simply has to be
done. What is seen through and depicted
in the eyes of Rei Kawakubo is cultural
essor, and her edifying will to achieve is
by now collective legacy.
CYRIL DUVAL (Item Idem) for 032c
For me
there!s no
compromise,
I do what I
want, and
they do
whatever I
couldn!t do
myself.
Rei Kawakubo, W, September 2008.
COLOR
In Japan. Kawakubo`s car|y fo||owcrs.
dressed in head-to-toe BLACK, were
popularly known as the crows.
In March 1988, Kawakubo resolutely
declared: RED is black. She illustrated
her point with a standout collection
(A/W 1988) full of virulent red.
Only someone such as Kawakubo, who
has reached the deepest understanding of
monotone, has such a feeling for colour
and can create such a brilliant red.
Seiichi Minzuno in Deyan Sudjic,
Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garons, 1990.
For the 7th issue of 032c, At War
With the Obvious (Summer 2004), Ka -
wakubo contributed five variations of
BLUE based on the Pantone color code
system. No text accompanied the plates.
The colour GOLDreminds her of Du-
bai, of the Vatican and of teapots.
Susannah Frankel, Rei, Another Magazine #18,
Spring/Summer 2010.
Throughout the 1980s, Kawakubos
co lor palette was dominated by white,
gray, and black, plus beige and navy.
The theme of darkness was omni present
in her creations. Along with Yohji Ya-
ma moto, she made black fa shion able
Kawakubos use of black in the 1980s
was so inuucntia| that shc is sti|| asso cia-
ted with the color. How ever, since she
launched her red Autumn/Winter 1988
collection, black has nearly disappeared
from her work. Moreover, Kawakubos
color choices and combinations are at
once radical and harmonious; she seems
to have established her own chromatic
sensibility. Kawakubo returns to black
periodically. For her, black may not be
just achromatic, but a color in its own
right.
Fashion in Colors exhibition catalogue, Cooper
Hewitt Museum, Smithsonian, New York 2006.
CREATION
At Comme des Garons, everything is
connected by creation: clothing design,
graphic design, interior design, business
strategy, marketing. All these have their
own causes and effects, and to bring them
all together as one force, one image, is
intcrcsting but vcry difncu|t.
Rei Kawakubo in Menkes, 2009.
When we met in the 80s, that was a
time when fashion distinguished itself
with its creative muscle and while thats
diminished now, Rei re mains an excep-
tion and a tour de force season after
season. With Rei, she is all about the
work, in the way that Michelangelo
wouldnt take his shoes off when he slept
because he felt that time could be better
spent painting - shes in the same mold.
GENE KRELL, Fashion Director, Vogue
and GQ Japan, to 032c.
Interview by Vicente Gutierrez.
I really felt that I was on my own. I never
felt my work had anything to do with being
a woman. I am not a feminist. I was never
interested in any movement as such. I just
decided to make a company built around
creation, and with creation as my sword, I
cou|d nght thc batt|cs I wantcd to nght.
Rei Kawakubo in Lee Carter, Connect the Dots,
T Magazine, August 28, 2005.
D
DESIGN
In the Comme des Garons fashion col-
lections, Kawakubohas offeredshirts with
extra sleeves and neck holes, jackets cut
to be misbuttoned, skirts and dresses with
wildly irregular hemlines, jackets with
slits up the length of the sleeve, jackets
bearing only one shoulder, clothing with
exposed seams, or asymmetrical padding
in unconventional places, and knitwear
with holes used to decorative effect:
such clothes cannot be discussed in
conventional fashion terms.
Jcssica C|asscock. ridging thc ArtConncrcc
Divide, Grey Gazette (cxhibition book|ct). \o|. 3.
No. 1, NewYork University, November 1999.
Ragged seams become ruffles. Yards
and yards of rufucs. hufucs appcar in
unexpected places poking out of seams.
Holes in sweaters become gashes in the
bodiccs of cvcning drcsscs. Jackcts arc
dismantled and turned inside-out or put
together in new ways. The inside of a
cardigan becomes the outside with the
bumpy texture of knitted roses close to
the body. Or perhaps it is the other way
around. One never knows.
Brooke Hodge, On the Work of
Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garons,
Harvard University GSD, May 2000.
DESTRUCTION
Kawakubo titled an all-black collection
from 1982 Destroy. It has become
le gendary.
The cloth scars in the form of cuts, and
the healing process in that of seams,
bandages, belts and zippers The sil-
houettes are tenderly presented and thus
hide the vehemence of the intrusions
that Rei Kawakubo makes on the normal
way of tailoring dresses and suits No
one can destroy his own work more be-
autifu||y than thc Japancsc dcsigncr.
Ulf Poschardt, On the Nature of Destruction,
032c #2, Summer 2001.
DOVER STREET MARKET
Instead of setting up on the typical lu-
xury shopping boulevards in London
the Kings Road, Bond Street and Mount
Street Kawakubo chose a corporate
ofncc spacc on a forgottcn strcct in Lon-
dons Mayfair district, which must have
been much cheaper. Since her ar rival,
other brands have followed suit and,
Dover Street is now home to Lon don
uagships for Acnc. AfC and \a ncssa
Bruno. IMRANAMEDfor 032c.
The recent frenzied spate of museum
building has seen unfortunate compa ri-
sons made between these cultural insti-
tutions and shopping malls. But I love
malls the way I love museums. Comme des
Garons founder Rei Kawakubos Dover
Street Market is rightly being described
as the ultimate mall. Everything she
thinks you should want is spread out over
six uoors. It is thc nost sub|inc. scnsua|
shopping experience, carefully curated
to inc|udc an Azzcdinc A|aa boutiquc.
a dozen Comme lines, and Terry de
Havilland shoes. Dover Street is not the
perfect mall; it is actually the perfect
museum.
Thelma Golden, Director, The Studio Museumin
Har|cn. cst of 2004: 13 critics curators |ook at
the year in art,Artforum December 2004.
I want to create a kind of market where
various crcators fron various nc|ds ga-
ther together and encounter each other
in an ongoing atmosphere of beautiful
chaos: the mixing up and coming together
of different kindred souls who all share a
strong personal vision.
Rei Kawakubo, www.doverstreetmarket.com
000 000
DISSENT
The majority
is always
wrong
Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People.
Printed on fabrics for Comme des Garons
men!s Fall 2003 collection.
E
ESSENCE
Reis clothes have that weird mixture of
Japancsc ninina|isn and nihi|isn and
Walt Disney
Nick Knight, Rei, Another Magazine #18,
Spring/Summer 2010.
EVERGREEN
CDG Homme Plus subline introduced in
2005, since discontinued, consisting of
favorite items from past collections that
have been re-issued with slight design
alterations
I have one of these, trust me, theyre
worth it! Their polyester fabric is very
nice and comfortable and they do so
many things with it, do it in a crisp twill,
do a warped/wrinkled treatment, etc.
I NEVER thought I would ever want to
own anything polyester but I was suprised
how much I like their synthetic pieces.
posted by brian_w
In response to
$1,000 for a polyester jacket? Im try-
ing really hard to swallow this
Posted by birdofparadise on The Fashion Spot
online community, evergreen thread.
F
FOUNTAINHEAD
Onc cannot nght thc batt|c without
frccdon. I think thc bcst way to nnd that
batt|c. which cqua|s thc unyic|ding spirit.
is in the realm of creation. Thats exactly
why frccdon and thc spirit of dcnancc is
the source of my energy.
Rei Kawakubu in Frankel, 2010.
FRAGANCE
Sincc |aunching its nrst cponynous pcr-
fume in 1994, Comme des Garons has
stcadi|y dcvc|opcd a sna|| but signin-
cant line of innovative fragrances, many
of them unisex. Over the years they
have included such critically acclaimed
and commercially successful scents as
Comme des Garons 2 and, most re-
ccnt |y. Wondcrwood. Odcur 3. thc
brand`s nrst anti-pcrfunc. with cc||u-
lose and burnt rubber among other
un conventional notes, was released in
1998 to mixed reviews.
ODLIh 3 (Comme des Garons)***
woody soapy
Historically important but artistically un -
satisfying, this fragrance started as a mi-
nimalist one-line concept-art school of
perfumery that has so far proved only
a moderately good idea. This one was
intended to smell clean and does that a
million times better than the fragrances
from the Clean brand which just smell
vi|c. ut it bcgs thc ctcrna| qucstion:
pour-quoi pas rien?
Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, Perfumes:
The Guide, Viking, 2008.
FREEDOM
Feeling free inside
oneself is being free.
Rei Kawakubo, Interview Magazine,
November 2008.
FUN
I duly asked her what she laughs at,
and she answered deadpan, People fal-
ling down.
Thurman, 2005.
FURNITURE
Kawakubo has dcsigncd nvc co||cctions
of furniturc. Chair No. 1. fron 1983.
was not characterized by comfort.
G
GATEWAY
Of all Comme des Garons products,
the classic zippered wallet is perhaps
the single most sought-after item, even
by people who know little else about the
brand.
GONZALEZ-TORRES, FELIX
Candy Pieces by the Cuban-born artist
was shown at the Aoyama store in May of
1998.
H
HISTORY
Ms. Kawakubo, 66, is one of the great
fashion forces from the last decades of
the 20th century to now.
Menkes, 2009.
* In fashion. it was thc ycar of thc Ja-
panese. And no one in that ultra sen-
si tive land, where every stitch can set
off an carthquakc. ratt|cd norc sakc
cups than Rei Kawakubo not even
her talented compatriots Issey Miyake
and Yohji Yamamoto. From Paris to
Tokyo her followers are striding about
in Kawakubos mournful, strangely cut
garments, black socks and rubber shoes.
Reis critics hold the 41-year-old desig ner
responsible for perpetrating a formless,
asexual look. Her clothes dont touch or
mold the body, complains traditionalist
French designer Sonia Rykiel. Theres
a lack of softness. But Reis supporters
credit her with some of the most startling
and inuucntia| dcsigns out of Japan to-
day. Rei is an original, says Bendel
\icc-frcsidcnt Jcan hoscnbcrg. `Shc is a
master of intricate cuts. Kawakubo, the
nost radica| of thc ncw wavc of Japancsc
designers, pronounces Western skintight
garncnts `quitc boring.` adding. `I dcsign
for women who are beyond that. What
sort of woman? The bag lady of New
York, Kawakubo replied fliply when
asked by Womens Wear Daily.
Reis now historic advance on the
West took place only two years ago. Her
nrst show in faris causcd onc of thc big-
gest furores since Stravinsky introduced
The Rite of Spring. Like Stravinsky, Rei
coolly mocked conventions shredding
and poking holes in skirts, tops and
dresses. In the US, where her clothes still
bafuc thc uninitiatcd cyc. hci`s succcss
is growing rapidly. She now has outposts
in ninc IS citics. with hcr own boutiquc
in Manhattans breathlessly fashionable
SoHo district.
Japan`s Stravinsky of Ia shion hocks thc
World with her Ato nal, Assymetric Sad Rags,
People Weekly. Dcccnbcr 26. 1983.
* Elsa Klensch: When did you rst be-
come interested in fashion?
Rei Kawakubo: When I was about 24.
Id been working in the adverstising
department of a textile company, and I
was asked to style the print ads and TV
commercials. I liked the work so much
that after two years I decided to leave the
nrn and work as a frcc|ancc sty|ist.
EK: Later, when you decide to become
a designer, was it because you couldnt
nd clothes you thought were right for
your work?
RK: It wasnt so much that I couldnt
nnd thc kinds of c|othcs I wantcd. I
was frustrated by the way we chose the
clothes.
EK: When and how did you get star-
ted?
RK: In about 1969 I rented a room that
was part of a Tokyo graphics design
studio and set up with two assistants.
EK: What sort of clothes did you pro-
duce?
RK: Clothes I felt were modern and new.
But they were commercial as well; I was in
business, and I had to support myself.
EK: How did you decide on the name
Comme des Garons?
RK: I dont remember exactly. I know I
wanted something long, something with
a ring to it. One of the people working
with me said, How about Comme des
Garons? And I thought, Why not?
EK: Your own name has a ring to it.
RK: I didnt think of myself as a desig-
ner. It was a business, a group of people
working together. I wanted a name that
would represent the whole group.
Elsa Klensch, Another World of Style Rei
Kawakubo, Vogue (New York), August 1987.
* KARI RITTENBACH: For a designer
or rather, aesthete whose otherworldly
ascent in fashion is accounted for by
no |css a crcation nyth than thc uattcst
plateau of starting from zero (the un-
couth postwar epithet Hiroshimas
Revenge attended CDGs earliest pre-
sentations), it is certainly ap posite to
examine how Kawakubo allows herself
to be historicized after the fact. A decon-
structivist with a paradoxically tightly-
controlled image, Kawakubo toys with
cultural and historical references as
adroitly, or as murkily, as the most pro-
digious Postmodernist and in so do-
ing has fashioned a history all her own.
But what came before the legend? What
was the reception to early Comme des
Carons in Japan |ikc during thc sc-
ven ties? (Kawakubo began producing
clothing for CdGas early as 1969.) Does
much clothing from this early period
still exist? In her New Yorker pron|c of
Kawakubo. writcr Judith 1hurnan is bcst
able to describe these pieces as possibly
featuring denimapron skirts.
000 000
AKIKO FUKAI: For Kawakubo, the Se-
venties were, I could say, her training or
trial period. She was well known among
professionals, such as stylists, fashion
journalists and buyers, who considered
her a very talented new type of designer.
In fact, we have just a few items of
clothing from her earlier period. They are
as Thurman described, and based mainly
on basic dai|y c|othcs. such as Japa n-
ese traditional farmers clothes made of
Aizonc (Japancsc indigo dyc tcxti|cs
or denim) and mens tailored suits. They
are baggy without holes and tiers yet a
uair for a ncw cra can bc disccrncd in hcr
clothing.
What was womens sportswear or
street wear like in the 1960s before
Kawakubo?
So-called American sportswear had
a|rcady bccn trans|atcd into Japancsc
womens wardrobes in the 1960s. The
Japancsc apparc| industry had dcvc|opcd
enormously by learning the American
readyto-wear fashions around that time.
Was it more difcult for Kawakubo to
control the presentation of her apparel
as a young designer? (Which might ne-
cessarily have encouraged her to show
in Paris?)
No, it was not. After having esta-
blished her own company in 1969, she
prcscntcd hcr nrst show in 1okyo in
197 and opcncd hcr boutiquc at thc
sanc ycar. (I rcncnbcr vcry wc|| hcr nrst
boutiquc. It was |ocatcd on thc sccond
uoor of a bui|ding in Hinani-Aoyana.
Tokyo and was discreet without a too
nicc wc|coning-fcc|ing but n||cd with a
stimulating atmosphere.) Anyway, she
debuted in Paris. It was unavoidable for
her to present her works in Paris, the
only place where her works might be
judged properly, whether positively or
negatively.
Kawakubo is a virtuoso of contradiction.
The title of her womens line is French for
like boys, yet for all of her androgynous
apparel, she has been careful to resist
being labeled a feminist. Kawakubo
also established herself squarely in an
industry dominated by men. How were
her early accomplishments viewed in
Japan, and has it had any affect on
gender politics in fashion there since?
In Japan bcforc hcr. thcrc wcrc a|-
ready several female fashion designers
who had met with success in the business.
For example, Hanae Mori was received
as a member of Paris Haute Couture in
1978. The naming of her brand CdG is
not related to feminism but more to the
attitude that Kawkubo does not com-
promise on conventionality. She said,
I try to create clothes by breaking away
from the clothes (or thinking) that al-
ready exist (Deconstruction and Ele-
gance, interview by Akiko Fukai, Dres-
study. \o|. 24. [Ia|| 1993]). 1hcrcforc
her accomplishment had little affect on
gender politics in fashion. In any case,
Japancsc fcninists didn`t pay so nuch
attention to fashion.
Do you consider Kawakubos quasi-
fe mi nism, then, to be reected in her
designs for women, which drape and
abstract the female body rather than
reveal or sensualize it? Or is the
style of Comme des Garons apparel
simply more culturally amenable to the
domestic consumer? In other words, is
her treatment of the body considered
radical in Japan?
As I mentioned before, she is not a
feminist. Therefore I think it would be
incorrect if we read her designs in the
contcxt of fcninisn. Hcr dcsign rcuccts
thc indigcnous notion of Japancsc c|oth-
ing (the kimono, for example) that it is
not necessary to obey the bodys form,
in contrast to the Western notion that
clothes should obey the bodys form; in
other words, clothing has the autonomy.
In thc Japancsc tradition. c|othing tcndcd
to conceal the body line rather than reveal
it. Therefore Kawakubos treatment of
thc body did not shock Japancsc pcop|c.
But what shocked them was her fervent
and strong expression, through the dy-
namic volume of form, intricateness of
construction and devotion to black in her
clothing.
What is most appealing about Comme
des Garons to the domestic consumer?
Kawaii (Kawaii contains a feeling
akin to Japancsc vcrsion of fcnininity).
At the same time, the labels very edgy
and artistic qua|ity.
In a 1983 interview with Womens
Wear Daily, Kawakubo insisted: Im
not very happy to be classied as
another Japanese designer. There is
no one characteristic that all Japanese
designers have. How do you respond
to this statement, today?
I agree with what she said. She can be
c|assincd by hcr own charactcristics but
not as particu|ar|y Japancsc. Howcvcr
I am sure that any creators whether
designers or artists cant escape from
thc inf|ucncc of 2citgcist on thcir
works; the circumstances, the time, and
of course the culture.
What do you consider Kawakubos
relationship to history? Would it be
wrong to question the veracity of her
claiming a starting point of conceptual
absolute zero? That later Comme
des Garons collections have riffed on
countless historical references (Ma grittes
The Red Model of 1935 or designs by
Elsa Schiaparelli, for example) certainly
indicates that fashion and art history
and not only contemporary culture, high
or low maintain a certain signicance
for her.
In fact in 1993. Kawakubo curatcd a
small fashion exhibition entitled Essen-
ce of Quality by mixing KCIs historical
costumes with her works in Tokyo. As
she said, I cant create without being
inspired by nothing. She knows about
art history and fashion history. But in her
work, the relationship to the history is
ambiguous; it is not simply revisiting the
past. She catches elements of inspiration T
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000 000
with her sensitive antennae and absorbs
them. Then she restores them to the level
of zero, where her own creation starts.

Western journalists have used adjec-
tives like esoteric, severe, tricky,
fer vent and innovative to describe
Kawa kubos inuence on the world
of fashion via Comme des Garons.
How have you generally described her
aesthetic?
Stimulating, dynamic, strong, intri-
cate, and new-feminine. The femininity
of the new era has been created by
Comme des Garons following after Co-
co Chanel. New-femininity looks some-
times androgynous; it is not determined
by mens eyes.
AKIKOFUKAI, Chief Curator,
The Kyoto Costume Institute, to 032c.
The KCI holds a total of 1500 CdG pieces from
the early 1980s to today.
Interview by Kari Rittenbach.
HOME
Kawakubo owns an apartment in a mo-
dern tower on the edge of a cemetery,
not far from Comme des Garons head-
quartcrs and thrcc storcs in Aoyana. 1hc
apartments precise location is a secret.
HONORIS
In 2000 Kawakubo was awarded the
Excellence in Design Award from Har-
vard Universitys Graduate School of
Design.
I
IDENTITY
I came across Comme des Garons in
the early 1980s, a season or two after
hci Kawakubo nrst showcd in faris. At
the time I was a trainee journalist with no
money and still dressed by customising
jumble sale bargains. But as soon as I could
afford to, I started buying a piece from
Comme each season. Fashion was much
more politicised then, because feminism
was so important. What you wore said
so much about your own identity, and
how you wanted to represent your gen-
der. Comme was the perfect solution.
Swathing yourself in those black folds
felt super chic, super uncompromising,
super radical and super feminist like
waving a vcry c|cgant two-nngcrcd sa|utc
at the establishment.
Alice Rawsthorn, Rei, Another Magazine #18,
Spring/Summer 2010.
INFORMATION
What is important to me is information
(in the journalistic sense of relating
news.) Through my collections, other
pro duct projects and through my gra-
phic work, or by collaborating with artists
and photographers, I like to tell a story.
Without ncws. nothing is a|ivc. 1hc nna|
result of everything must say something.
Information deepens the work. So, if
anything, I am maybe more of a journalist
than an artist!
Rei Kawakubo in Menkes, 2009.
J
JOFFE, ADRIAN
Married to Rei Kawakubo since 1992,
the South African is the president of
Comme des Garons International. He
is the companys main spokesperson and
Kawakubos chief interpreter.
K
KISS
Models in the Comme des Garons womens
Fall 2009 collection wore tulle masks embroidered
with rcd scquins in thc fornof a |ip snudgc.
L
LOVELY
Kawakubo has said she starts out by gi-
ving form to ideas she considers lovely
or smart.
M
MATERIALS
Over the years the designer has also in-
corporated textiles thought to be cheap,
ostentatious, cute, vulgar, or kitsch, and
repositioned them in the aesthetic hier-
archy.
Koda, 2008.
1
It was Hiroshi Matsushita who
devised the rayon criss-crossed with
elastic that allowed Kawakubo to make
the garments in the womens collection
of 1984 bubble and boil as though they
were melting. And it was Matsushita
who formulated the bonded cotton rayon
and polyurethane fabric Kawakubo used
for her asymmetric dresses of 1986
For Matsushita, the distinctive character
of a Comme des Garons garment can
be traced back to the thread that will be
used to weave the fabric from which the
collection will be made.
2
Once she gave us a piece of crum-
pled paper and sad she wanted a
pattern for a garment that would have
soncthing of that qua|ity. Anothcr tinc
she didnt produce anything, but talked
about a pattern for a coat that would
havc thc qua|itics of a pi||owcasc that
was in the process of being pulled inside
out. She didnt want that exact shape, of
course, but the essence is that moment of
transition, of half inside, half out.
Sudjic, 1990.
MEMORY, erased
Continuity of tradition and history is
pre sent in varying degrees in all cultures,
but learning to forget these rather than
inheriting them is far from easy. In place
of forgetting, we could substitute the
words destruction and rebirth. This is
because in order to create a new memory,
wc nust nrst crasc thc o|d ncnory. Onc
of only a handful of examples where the
mechanism of destruction and rebirth has
been adopted in the context of handing
down a tradition is the shikinen sengu
ceremony at the Ise Shrine, according
to which the shrine is completely dis-
mantled and rebuilt every 20 years. The
meticulousness with which this renewal
ceremony is observed, which means that
not only the buildings but everything
down to the artefacts inside the buildings
are replaced, results in the crystallization
both of the skills of the craftsmen involved
and of the time in which they act. A certain
purity is also achieved as a result of this
process. The old and the new appear
to be the same, but because the cells
themselves have been replaced, strictly
speaking they are different entities. The
primal spirit in the form of the object of
worship housed inside is embodied in
the design of the shrine.
A shrine that remains forever 20
years old or less could be thought of
as an analogy for someone who rejects
maturity beyond childhood and is reborn
over and over again in order never to
attain adulthood. This isnt the same as
cquating growth with thc rc|cction of
development, but entails forgetting by
denying one after another the things
that accumulate inside one. The only
things allowed to accumulate would be
practical skills and pure technology. As
soon as one declares oneself an heir to,
or destroyer of, history or tradition, one
begins to age towards adulthood.
A feature of the work produced
by these creators, who could almost be
described as Ise Shrine-like, is that they
help extinguish and regenerate the cells
and contaminated memory neurons of
the people who set eyes on them. Ka-
wakubo Rei and Sejima Kazuyo, whom I
rate as two of the greatest creators alive
today, both fall into this cell rege ne-
ration category.
Hasegawa Yuko, Chief Curator,
Museumof Contemporary Art, Tokyo,
The Art of Forgetting, Art iT Magazine,
Fall/Winter 2006.
MODERNISM
Kawakubo has always functioned as a mo-
dernist. Her fashion is serious, singular,
sensitive, full of energy and it always
ma kes impertinent demands on our fee-
lings. She works only for the satisfaction
of her own ideas, season after season.
She has used the skills of her pattern-
makers in Tokyo to attack and explore a
variety of human conditions, including
randomness, un rea lity, our literal and
metaphorical burdens, and our complex
ideas about ero ticism and beauty. She
makes us see these things in her fashion.
CATHY HORYN, fashion critic of
The New York Times, for 032c
000 00
N
NEW
I want
to design
clothes
that have
never yet
existed
Rei Kawakubo in Koda, 2008.
O
OFFICE
1hc nrst thing you shou|d know about
thc Connc dcs Carons hcadquartcrs is
that it occupics nvc uoors of an ordinary
ofncc bui|ding on a busy road. cach uoor
as drably functional as the next. Nothing
to reveal here except its nothingness.
There is no receptionist to greet you
or to direct you to the appropriate
floor. This would only be a problem if
you were actually expected at Comme
des Garons, but very few people are
welcomed there, and that also applies
to family mem bers. No husbands, boy-
friends, wives, daughters never, said
Joffc. Which brings us to thc sccond
thing you should know about Comme
des Garons: its a very secretive place.
Cathy Horyn, Gang of Four,
The New York Times, February 24, 2008
P
PATTERN
Design assistants at Comme des Garons
are patterners, and as patterners they
must develop a feel not only for shape
and texture but also, more tryingly, for
what Kawakubo is feeling at the start
of a collection, whether she is happy
or angry, sentiments she rarely com-
mu nicates in any detail. As she once ex-
plained, At the start, I am not exactly
cer tain what I am thinking myself. It is
guesswork with us. What Kawakubo
hopes to achieve from this open process
is that the patterners will think more
intuitively and come up with things that
will surprise her.
Horyn, 2008.
* When she uses these abilities as a
springboard to think freely and radically,
patterns from the basis of her work.
Patterns are design. Designing actually
begins with patterns. The concept is con-
veyed to the pattern makers using simple
drawings and the nuances of lan guage.
Each persons interpretation comes back
to Kawakubo, and an exchange develops
from there.
Something made once is never made
a sccond tinc. 1his uncquivoca| statc-
ment of intent was made clear at Comme
des Garons for Comme des Garons 4,
a show for Comme des Garons em-
ployees put together in September at
thc conpany`s hcad ofncc. fattcrns for
93 garncnts that had prcvious|y bccn
produced were displayed in the form of
bold, black graphics in a space whose
uoor. wa||s and cci|ing had bccn paintcd
white. Each pattern had been made into
a garment using neutral sheeting and
disp|aycd on a nanncquin torso p|accd
next to the corresponding pattern. Set
against a stark white background in
a style reminiscent of Andy Warhols
dance step paintings, the bold graphics
seemed to borrow heavily from the
pop/conceptual art form. Combined
with the almost unbelievable variation of
the forms standing like monotone statues
in the spaces between the graphics, this
resulted in a show that was extremely
sophisticated and powerful.
But there was no so-called message
or ideological theme there. The entire
show consisted of displays of patterns,
which take shape only after a process in
which Kawakubo gropes around in an
ef fort to come up with forms, relying
for guidance on the most primal aspect
of her work the images in her head
and of the three-dimensional entities to
which these two-dimensional patterns
had given rise.
This approach of pursuing to an
extreme the autonomy of the garment
rather than fitting it to the body finds
its ultimate expression in the bold pat-
tern experiments and endless studies of
the pattern makers. Because the actual
form of the pattern is not bound by any
conventions such as having to cut along
the grain of the fabric, the garment de-
velops a shape all of its own. This puts the
onus on the person wearing a Comme
des Garons garment in the sense that
it tests their ability to make the clothes
look good on them.
The overall image depends on the
experimentation with the form and the
development of the patterns rather than
the production of the three-dimensional
garments on which they are based. For
example, when one sees Ultra-simple
(October 1992), which despite the gar-
ments themselves being varied and com-
p|cx in thc cxtrcnc. is a qucst by thc
de signer to see how many clothes can
be made using a minimum of patterns,
one realizes that Kawakubos concept
image is not found on the surface of the
clothing, but at deeper level.
Hasegawa Yuko, Chief Curator, Museum
of Contemporary art, Tokyo, The Art of
Forgetting, art iT Magazine, Fall/Winter 2006. Ju
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PEERLESSNESS
There are few women who have exerted
norc inuucncc on thc history of nodcrn
fashion, and the most obvious, Chanel,
is in some respect her perfect foil: the
racy courtesan who invented a uniform
of irreproachable chic and the gnomic
shaman whose anarchic chic is reproach
to uniformity. They both started from an
egalitarian premise: that a woman should
derive from her clothes the ease and
conndcncc that a nan docs. ut Chanc|
formulated a few simple and lucrative
principles, from which she never wave-
red, that changed the way women wanted
to dress, while Kawakubo, who reinvents
the wheel or tries to every season,
changed the way one thinks about what
a dress is.
Thurman, 2005.
PHOTOGRAPHY
It was a Harpers Bazaar layout that pre -
cipitated(CindyShermans)collaboration
with Kawakubo. After seeing that layout
in 1993. Kawakubo contactcd Shcrnan
and provided her with clothing from each
of the Comme des Garons col lections,
to be photographed however Sherman
wished. The resulting images were then
used in the direct-mail campaign for the
Comme des Garons au tumn/winter
199495 collections and also displayed
in thc conpany`s SoHo boutiquc. 1hcsc
photographs are less depictions of sale-
able product than challenges to the ex-
pectation of what a fashion photograph
should be, breaking virtually every rule of
fashion photography.
As philosopher Roland Barthes has
observed, fashion photography is gene-
rally governed by a garment-photo graph-
caption formulation, an apt description
that cannot, however, be applied to
Sher mans interpretation of Comme des
Garons clothes. Her photographs cen-
tcr on dis|ointcd nanncquins and bi-
zarre characters, forcing the clothing
itself in to the background. The lithe,
physically ideal fashion model, so inte-
gral to the pages of Vogue, Glamour, and
Elle, is nowhere to be seen. In her place
are a menagerie of confrontationally
un pretty surrogates, like the garishly
nadc-up nanncquin in Shcrnan`s Un-
titled (#302).
In the context of Kawakubos de-
stabi lizing approach to the established
way of doing business in the fashion in-
dustry, her collaboration with Sherman,
whose work also undermines the reality
of particular images, seems almost pre-
destined.
Glasscock, 1999.
PLACE VENDOME,
Number 16, Paris 1st Arrondisement:
Wor|d Hcadquartcrs of Connc dcs
Carons outsidc of Japan sincc 1981.
PROTEGE
Tao Kurihara, own line under
CDG umbrella since 2005
Junya Watanabc, own line under CDG
unbrc||a sincc 1993
Fumito Ganryu, own line under CDG
umbrella since 2007
Q
QUASIMODO
In October of 1996, Comme des Gar-
ons presented its collection for spring/
summer 1997, titled Dress Meets
Body. It is the most discussed Comme
des Garons collection to date, brought
up in almost every interview, text or
conversation about the label and its
founder.
The small invited audience sits in
a squarc in thc Muse dArt Afrique et
dOcanie in Paris There is no music
and no catwa|k. 1hc nrst nodc| concs
on in a slender, white, semi-trans pa-
rent dress with two little buds at the
back, like nascent angels wings. As the
show progresses each model comes
out in increasingly larger and, to most
commentators, odder swellings, all under
|ong. nttcd drcsscs in strctch fabrics.
Some are in red, white, or blue; others
in a range of ginghams: black, pale blue,
pink, or red and white. All are padded,
with goosc-down n||ings. 1hc fcathcr
pads are arranged asymmetrically; they
run over a shoulder, diagonally across
a hip, down the back, or coil round
the torso, to form half-bustles, raised
necks, or prominent backs. It is hard to
nnd thc words to dcscribc thc cffcct of
these down pads under sheer dresses:
if words fail perhaps it is because the
dresses do not engage with the everyday
language of the fashion body. To make
a form in which a woman looks pretty in
a conventional way is not interesting to
me at all, says Commes designer Rei
Kawakubo. And it is true that she does
not emphasize its conventional assets:
sna|| waist. uat stonach. curving hips
and bottom, small, high breasts. Yet nei-
ther does she deny them particularly,
even when she obscures some of these
body parts. This is not a collection which
engages tyrannically with fashion, and
its rcquircncnts that thc body bc honcd.
exercised, produced. It seems, instead,
to be a speculation on what else the body
could be, other than.
Caroline Evans, Paris 1996, 032c #4,
Wintcr 200203.
* Kim Novaks protuberances in Hitch-
cocks Vertigo. Codzi||a porcs. pus uo-
wering on top of pimples, Nineteenth-
century bustles and false fronts, Veroni-
ca Cartwrights bug-eyed expression of
horror in Ridley Scotts Alien, prosthetic
cocks or a real erect one, cellulite and
diagrams on how to combat it, the male/
female character in Silence Of The Lambs
regarding his image in the mirror, dick
tucked between his legs all these tabu-
lae non rasae sprang to mind as I watch-
ed models garbed in Rei Kawakubos
Spring/Summer 97 collection walk
down the runway this fall, their backs,
shoulders, and hips made ecstatically,
imagistically associative by the down
humps planted in Kawakubos wool, po-
ly urethane, and organdy gowns.
Hilton Als, Bump and Mind, Artforum,
December 1996.
*
One of my favorite fashion moments of
all times is, for different reasons, Rei
Kawakubos Body Meets Dress, Dress
Meets Body collection from 1996. At
the time, I was in Paris doing an intern-
ship for Thierry Mugler; it was the season
whcn Hug|cr and Cau|ticr did thcir nrst
haute couture shows, and Galliano did
his nrst Dior show and HcQuccn did his
nrst co||cction for Civcnchy. It was a|so
the time when that Comme des Garons
collection was hanging in the CDG shop
in Paris, not the new one, but the one
at Etienne Marcel I love that shop so
much, and I loved the smell of it, it smelled
|ikc Connc dcs Carons. thc nrst
perfume. And while it was real ly great to
work at Mugler and get to look at all that
great Parisian fashion, seeing Comme
des Garons was special because it was so
different. Imagine, to be surrounded by
haute couture and then go to Comme des
Garons and see all those weird clothes
and those amazing skirts in paper and
all the shapes and the colors, like little
bulbs made of what had to be polyester in
orangc and turquoisc. And you cou|d try
these things on it was amazing. Even
the simplest pieces; I remember this
black T-shirt that just had like a bulb
protruding on one side. Every time I
think about it, I regret not having bought
anything, because the clothes were rela-
tively not that expen sive at the time. And
I know that even now, 14 years later, if
I went to any party wearing that T-shirt
with a bulb, it would be something. That
collection will al ways be great.
LUIS VENEGAS, Creative Director and Publisher,
EY! Megateen, Fanzine 137 &Candy, for 032c
* This season, Ms. Kawakubo might have
pushed the handpicked audience of sup-
porters a bit too far. There is a delicate
balance to her Comme des Garons ad-
miration society. Most important each
sea son is her concept, which this time
was body meets dress, dress meets bo-
dy and becomes one. But typically she
throws a bone to those who still believe
clothes are for wearing outside fashion
focus groups without being gawked at.
This time there wasnt much for this
contingent. Ms. Kawakubo was experi-
menting with new forms and new bo-
dies. So beneath beautiful stretch-fabric
dresses she stuffed lumpy masses that
looked a bit like collagen injections
run amok. Shaped like kidney beans,
sometimes they sprouted above the
breasts. Sometimes they ballooned out
of the back. Hamish Bowles, the Euro-
pean editor of Vogue, suggested that
the clothes looked like something from
The Piano as if costume details like
bustles had been interpreted by the
Maori tribe. But others were less kind.
At one point, as a model emerged, her
shoulders stuffed, a photographer yelled
out Quasimodo into the deathly silent
presentation, with no music and cer tainly
no chatting. If the pads were removed, of
course, there would have been painfully
pretty layered stretch dresses with high
necks, in colors like lavender and gray, or
modern prints of melded watery colors,
pale green, yellow, orange and pale blue.
But mostly the dresses invented whole
new deformities for women. The only
mass with a positive connotation was one
that jutted from the front like a pregnant
body. There were some lovely dresses
within thc show. cqua||y as conccptua|
and cqua||y unwcarab|c. sonc big bub-
bles that rose up from the hips so the
model became an unopened flower,
some giant swaths of red fabric that ren-
de red models virtually immobile, and
some that had skirts resembling waxed
brown paper bags with big, bright ja ckets
of what looked like crinkled crinolines.
Ms. Kawakubo said she was looking to the
future, and its true that ideas she started
in the past deconstruction, for instance
were hard to get used to. So, years from
now, perhaps it will seem remarkable that
these new shapes met resistant eyes, but
it is highly unlikely.
Amy Spindler, Is It New and Fresh
or Merely Strange?, The New York Times,
October 10, 1996.
*
000 000
R
REI
In pcrson. thc dcsigncr is as difncu|t to
pin down as her clothes.
Frankel, 2010.
People have the wrong idea about her,
shes not hard at all shes a gentle soul
who loves old trees and cats and dogs
and big fat diamonds!
Adrian Joffc inAnti-fashion dcsigncr.
The Star Online. Ha|aysia. Ju|y 11. 2004.
REI-ISMS
A collection is
never not an exercise in
suffering.
What doesn!t sell
today, sells tomorrow.
For something to
beautiful, it doesn!t have
to be pretty.
Clothes are my views.
REFUSAL
There may be many reasons why Ka-
wa kubo resists verbal communication
one might attribute it to a deep mistrust
of members the press who, lets face it,
were plain antipathetic when she started
out or, simply to the fact that the designer
may well just be shy.
Frankel, 2010.
1
Said to have been exploring the
boundaries of malleable form in
move ment with padded bumps at bust,
rear, and midriff combined with a stretchy
synthetic gingham, Kawakubo has never
verbally confirmed a frustration with
fashion`s passion for nt. cvcn cnaciatcd
nodc|s and nanncquins.
2
Kawakubo, who has been labeled
me la ncholic for her early use of
black, has declined comment on these
criticisms and allegations.
The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
(www.metmuseum.org/toah)
RETAIL
Seizing the media blast that followed
hcr nrst prcscntation in faris. in 1981.
Rei Kawakubo started to devise a retail
strategy that would in stant ly become the
companys main vehicle to articulate its
image. The labels early shops, with their
near absence of design (the Paris store
was no torious for its emptiness), appear
in retrospect as mere exercises before
embarking on a larger scheme that would
come to express Comme des Garons
identity in contained physical spaces. In
1998, a collaboration with the British
design studio Future Systems created
thc brand`s triptych of uagships (1okyo.
Paris, NY), which are now classics of
store design. In New York, for instance,
the team envisioned a Chelsea garage
warping into an aluminum vortex. Added
to these early milestones more recently
wcrc a nvc-story narrow nono|ith. whitc
and windowless, in the heart of Hong
Kong, and a pure black prosthesis in
Kyoto, both also including gallery space.
Connc dcs Carons` Adrian Joffc is
cre dited as the architect of the Guerrilla
concept, scouting the worlds most un-
cx pcctcd fashion dcstinations to nnd thc
ideal partners for the temporary stores
the brand created between 2004 and
2008. In collaboration with scientists,
cooks, writers, and friends of the
house (the Guerrilla rules stating that lo-
cal partners are not to be specifically
involved in fashion), around 20 Guerrilla
Stores appeared and disappeared, to use
the brands language, in Athens, Bar-
celona, Basel, Beirut, Berlin, Glasgow,
Los Angeles, Ljubljana, Helsinki, Hong
Kong, Singapore, Stockholm, and War -
saw, among others. Systematically named
Comme des Garons Guerrilla Stores +
XXX (with the international area code
corresponding to the geo-lo calization),
their design was dictated by modesty,
ephe merality (never longer than a
year), and the preservation of elements
from the spaces previous function
(not renovation, but acclimatization and
improvement) all for a ridiculously
sna|| nnancia| invcstncnt. 1hc sinp|c
formula was a commercial success that
agitated the media and public attention
with its radical-seeming approach. Be-
causc thc pop-up conccpt quick|y bc-
came a copied gimmick, Comme reso-
lu tely terminated the Guerrilla project
in 2008, and initiated the Comme des
Garons POCKET stores, which pre-
miered in Paris. As a mutant crossover
bctwccn a high-cnd boutiquc and a
con venience store, POCKET offers the
brands easiest products to retail. To
celebrate 40 years of the label, along
with a massive communication cam paign
that included billboards (New York)
and subway advertisements (Tokyo),
Com me des Garons BLACK opened
in several cities worldwide and unveiled
the eponymous, more affordable line,
de mon strating Kawakubos swift and
secure investigation into all layers of
the market at once. The same Ready-to-
Access idea is synthesized in PLAYBOX,
a simple colorful booth installed, mar-
ket-style, in front of CDG stores to
uood thc strcct with thc brand`s high|y
accessible PLAY line.
Lnphasizing thc uca narkct notion
of beautiful chaos a primal Kawakubo
constituent Comme wielded its full
economic clout with Dover Street Mar-
ket. Think for a second of the real-estate
value of such a space in London Mayfair.
But, again, the investment was paired
with pragmatism (e.g, by renting lots in
the concession to invited participants
and brands, or welcoming merchandise
on a consignment basis). Kawakubos
original atelier, which neighbors the
nain ofncc and dcsign studio and thc
Aoyana CDC 1okyo uagship. nay bc
the brands most versatile retail entity.
It functions as a laboratory for various
experiments Comme is testing on its
own ground, to potentially later expand
virally around the world. Among the
spaces many incarnations include the
nrst co||aboration with high-cnd nichc
retailer Colette (Colette meets Comme
des Garons); the shop-in-sculpture-in-
architccturc JAN Connc dcs Carons
(with artist Jan dc Cock); HAffY Ar-
my Store, a funky-cheeky-messy military
shop designed by and selling the labels
of Junya Watanabc (who offcrcd his own
gucrri||a cxpcricncc with thc cYc Junya
Watanabe Comme des Garons shop
lost in the streets of Tokyos Harajuku
district); Dover Street Market Tokyo
as an Alice in Wonderland miniature
replica of the London vessel; Vogue X
Connc dcs Carons. whcrc thc Japa-
nese edition of the magazine curated
many collaborations, from Chanel to Ta-
kashi Murakami; the highly expected
and commentated Louis Vuitton at Com-
nc dcs Carons; thc nrst Connc dcs
Garons BLACK shop; and currently a
Connc dcs Carons HONCLLh 36
venture.
The list is endless and continues to
grow. One of the brands most interesting
projects opened last year in the Gyre
building on Omotesando Street, Tokyo.
TRADING MUSEUM CDG extends the
conceptual and aesthetic model of Dover
Street Market by mixing the centuries-
old notion of museums as institutions
that elevate humanity with the concept
of tradc. Antiquc woodcn cabincts fron
the Victoria & Albert Museum, over-
sized BE@RBRICKS (CDG being the
only label authorized to have them pro-
duced larger than 1000%), and instal-
lations by Michael Howells, who was al so
responsible for some of the most out-
standing parts of Dover Street Mar ket,
are here to reinstate Kawakubos am-
bition: to constantly instigate new stunts
in an apathetic field, and to celebrate
shopping as a transformative experience
where economic power can be used to
in ject commerce with culture.
CYRIL DUVAL (item idem) for 032c
RUPTURE
The historian and
curator Valerie Steele
sees a kind of violence
even a brutalism to
Rei!s work that made
most fashion of the time
look innocuous and
bourgeois, and from
that moment an avant-
garde split from the
mainstream and hurtled
off in its own direction.
Thurman, 2005.
hci Kawakubo in 200. ofncia| portrait by Liichiro Sakata.
The designers hairstyle, a variation of the classic bob, has remained unchanged in over three decades.
000
S
SALVAGE
Rei used to love going through the gar-
bagc to nnd things wc`d thrown out - now
I bring our garbage can with us.
Ronnie Cooke Newhouse in Rawsthorn, 2009.
SCENARIO
On October, 14 1997, the Merce Cun-
ningham Dance Company premiered
Sce nario at the Brooklyn Academy of Mu-
sic. The dancers were wearing cos tumes
designer by Rei Kawakubo.
1hc costuncs sto|c thc show. 1hc nrst.
colorful section suggested a tropical
uto pia, an undiscovered island of weird
cultural signifiers, of Others dancing
away. When the dancers came out in
their black Kawakubos, I thought of
French poodles groomed for show; or
Victorian widows, their bustles askew;
or the precarious black hair-buns of
geishas; or Diors New Look, with its
fertility goddess swells. I had not con-
sidcrcd |ust how ubiquitous bunps
and humps are in fashion history, how
natura| to thc |andscapc of artincc. Nor
had I ever seen the Cunningham dancers
|ook g|anorous in quitc this way - in a
fashion context. The womens strong,
slim, lower legs were suddenly gorgeous,
feminine legs eroticized. Gams.
Laura Jacobs. Conputcr gancs: Hcrcc Cunning-
ham, The New Criterion, December 1997.
SECRECY
1hcqucst procccds bchindc|oscddoors.
like a papal election, and successive me-
ditations on the koan produce more or
|css adcquatc rcsu|ts.
Thurman, 2005.
SEX
Falling somewhere between an Amish
smock and a Coogi sweater on the hotness
scale, Comme des Garons is, without a
doubt, the least sexy of any fashion label
today. More platonic than erotic, more
comical than come-hither, the clothes
simply do not hug a womans curves in
the way French designers do or leave the
ucsh barc in thc way Ita|ian dcsigncrs
do. They dont even subliminally echo,
suggest or point to a persons naughty
bits. Like boys, it would seem, is just
a name.
Not even when Rei Kawakubo be-
gan showing her collections in Paris in
1981 did her designs become any more
titillating or romantic. While suggestive,
the spring 1997 collection known as
lumps and bumps (ascribed by the
press) was more about bodily extremes
than carnal desire. And the Rolling Stone
tongue-and-lips prints of the spring 2006
mens collection was less about male
|ibido than rifnng on a tradcnark. No. to
this day the Comme des Garons look has
more to do with its original inspiration,
rustic Japancsc pcasantry. than a ronp
in the hay. But lets be clear. It isnt that
Ms. Kawakubo takes a clutch-pearls, Vic-
torian view on sex. Its as if the subject
doesnt ever enter her thought process.
Not even that most sensuous of de-
signer offerings, the perfume, is remotely
arousing when it comes from the Comme
des Garons camp. Among its best-sellers,
Odeur is in fact an anti-perfume, and
touted as such. With notes that include
nail polish and burnt rubber, its a far cry
fron thc prctty uora|s. swcaty nusks. and
pheromone-laden wannabe aphrodisiacs
on the market. Perhaps there is a sexual
innuendo in the more recent fragrance,
Wonderwood, but its doubtful.
Only two Comme des Garons ad-
vertisements have ever come to my at-
tention. One was for PLAY, a secondary
line, and the other a fragrance. But even if
Comme advertised its scents as heavily as
Dolce & Gabbana or Roberto Cavalli do,
you would never, ever see a wind-blown,
spread-eagled, airbrushed model draped
in a near-orgiastic state over shirtless,
swarthy men. Of this you can be sure.
So, okay, sex is off-limits in the
Comme des Garons universe. Which is
to say, of course, that Comme, that most
ironic of |abc|s. is uttcr|y. uncquivoca||y.
impossibly sexy.
LEE CARTER, Founder and Editor in Chief,
Hintmag.com, for 032c
SIX
Begun in 1988 and published bi-an-
nually, that is, for the Spring and Fall
collections of Comme des Garons,
Six was never intended to be merely a
means of itemizing what was for sale,
that much is clear. Large format (15.5
x 11.5) of folded loose leaves, it is not
a pocket book! Its format imposes a
presence and physicality upon the reader
or viewer, since each issue is much
more a folio of photographs and collage
in performance than a picture book of
pretty glossy snaps, hence the preference
for black and white (rather than color)
as though in line with art house black
and whitc n|n. It brings an approach
to content and style that is wholly avant-
garde: beginning with the (relative) use
of anonymity in order to facilitate the
sense of the review as a collective creative
endeavor; the fact that the journal is
given away free to all interested parties
(a form of potlatch, then); the range of M
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materials and subjects brought to gether:
furniturc. photography. nnc arts. poctry.
architecture and urba nism, portraiture,
clo thing; the recovery of out-of-the-
way materials (the photographs of the
people, landscape and folk-art of Geor-
gia, for example, a sort of contemporary
Pont-Aven of the Gauguin and Nabis
symbolistes; of the Surrealist-inflected
photography of Andr Kertsz along
with the Constructivist cinema of Dziga
Vertov), and all of this in the presentation
of a view (an image) of living as integrated
phenomenon, above all, the way in which
these materials are brought together to
make of the journal Six a laboratory of
ideas, ideas which will then take on a life
of their own in different forms (lines in
furniture, clothing, interior architecture,
photography, no less than dance in at
least one case).
Michael Stone-Richards, I amA Cat,
Refusing Fashion, MOCAD2008.
+
From 1988 to 1991, Kawabuko em-
bar ked on a bold experiment that trans-
formed the notion of a fashion catalogue
from a documentary listing of individual
itcns into a bo|d. avant-gardc nnc arts
magazine that incidentally included
ima ges of the seasons line. She called
the publication Sixth Sense, or Six for
short, explaining in the premier issue,
Six is the sixth sense. It is the sense
of the surreal. Although the sixth sense
is inpossib|c to dcscribc. uair nay
be one aspect of this sense. Each issue
mixed newly commissioned works by
the hottest contemporary fashion pho-
to graphers showcasing Comme des
Gar ons wardrobe with iconic images
created by the masters of photography.
Contcnporary artists frcqucnt|y appca-
red in the issues, both with their art and
as nodc|s. 1hc ovcra|| gritty qua|ity of
the prints is evocative of Kawakubos
design aesthetic, which in the early days
of the company was considered Hiro-
shima chic.
Abstract fromlibrary catalogue,
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.
SPACE
Her clothing is not so much about the
body as the space around the body and
the metaphor of self the garment as
a construction in space, essentially a
structure to live in.
Sarah Bodine, Kawakubo, Rei,
fashionencyclopedia.com.
Kawakubos clothes are architectonic
or sculptural, concentrating on structure
rather than surface. The garments are
constructed and assembled, rather like
a building, and because they are almost
a|ways spatia| in naturc thcy rcquirc
a body to inhabit them, to supply the
missing volume often they are incon-
ceivable without the body and, for this
reason, are often much better off the
rack and on the body.
Hodge, 2000.
T
TASTE
I played with notions of bad taste and
then did them the Comme des Garons
way. Of course, bad taste done by Comme
des Garons becomes good taste.
Rei Kawakubo via The Fashion Spot, 2008
TYPEFACE
It`s fashion`s nrst non-|ogo. it captu rcs
Commes spirit of com plicated simpli ci-
ty. Paola Antonelli, De sign curator, The
Museum of Modern Art, NY, re gar ding
the font, with a star instead of a cedilla,
that is the companys de-facto logo.
The Worlds Top 50 Logos,
The Globe and Mail (Toronto), October 27, 2000
U
URBANISM
Let it be said that Kawakubos enter-
prise has an urbanism. Prada has loca-
tions, many of them urban, but it doesnt
have an urbanism. Comme des Garons
is never on the main street of the most
obvious shopping neighborhood. When
Kawakubo established stable and pro-
per showrooms, they tend to be invisible
from the street polka dot curved glass
is in set from the building line, windows
are spare and lack the loud broadcasting
design of traditional storefront display
and tunnels, and other kinds of pas-
sage ways are constructed to keep the
destination itself always at bay. Of course
the guerilla stores moving around like
nonads or squattcrs who adopt p|accs as
they are found take this urban principle
and put it into action. If most stores today
simply make static urban monuments,
Comme des Garons is an active urbanism
of stealth and evasion, where shops walk
around thc wor|d |ikc updatcd uancurs
who can nnd privacy and sccrccy on|y
when exposed and in the midst of the
chaotic city.
Sylvia Lavin, Pas Comme des architectes,
Refusing Fashion, MOCAD2008.
URINE
In September 1994, Comme des Gar-
ons introduced its first perfume. It
was prcscntcd as a urinc-yc||ow |iquid
in plastic bags laid out around the swim-
ming pool at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.
The fragrances concept was WORKS
LIKE A MEDICINE, BEHAVES LIKE
A DRUG.
V
VEHICLE
Despite her wealth, her only apparent
major indulgence is a vintage car, a mon-
ster Mitsubishi from the 1970s, which
attracts the kind of stares in Tokyo that
her clothes attract in Houston.
Thurman, 2005
W
WEIWEI, AI
Concurrcnt to his sunuowcr sccd insta||ation
at Tate Modern, Dover Street Market sells
T-shirts by the Chinese artist for 15.
WORD
I start every collection with one word, I
can never remember where this one word
came from. I never start a collection with
some historical, social, cultural or any
other concrete reference or memory. Af-
tcr I nnd thc word. I thcn do not dcvc|op
it in any logical way. I deliberately avoid
any order to the thought process after
nnding thc word and instcad think about
the opposite of the word, or something
different to it, or behind it.
Rei Kawakubi in Horyn, 2008.
WORK
Elsa Klensch: What personality traits
have contributed most to your success?
Rei Kawakubo: Its not personality. Its
hard work. When Este Lauder accep-
ted her achievement award at the Fa-
shion Group last fall she said she didnt
get where she got by chance. She wor-
ked. Its the same with me. I worked
hard every day.
That!s all it is
a lot of hard work.
Klensch, 1987.
X
XY/XX
Comme des Garons, like boys: its
been a gender game from the be ginning.
Girls who are boys who like boys to be
girls A graphic upending of sartorial
orthodoxy in which the image of a
man in a skirt is essential, because of
thc qucstions it poscs about tradition.
perception, aesthetics, and gen der
or so it seems. But nothing is ever what
it seems with Rei Kawakubo and so
it is with a man in a skirt. Wal ter van
Beirendonck, a designer Rei Kawakubo
happens to admire, once said, When it
is properly balan ced, a skirt is without
gender, and, Whether clothes are for
men and wo men is all in the head. Reis
head is clear of preconception. Comme
des Garons integrates tradi tio nal ele-
ments of menswear and wo mens wear
in thc nost nattcr-of-fact nanncr. Just
how matter-of-fact be comes clear when
you look at the ways other designers have
proposed skirts for men: subversive, or
provocative, or sexual, or aggressive, or
satirical. There is none of that in the sight
of Cole Mohr marching down the Comme
catwalk in an ensemble that marries the
monochrome rigor of clerical gear with the
strictness of an Edwardian governess. But
these are my preconceptions, not Reis.
1hc two grcatcst inuucnccs on thc cvo-
lu tion of the silhouette and attitude
of contcnporary Japancsc fashion arc
Edwardian England and Vivienne West-
wood. Rei Kawakubo mirrors both, the
disciplined ego of one, the unleashed id
of thc othcr. ut what rca||y dcnncs hcr
interpretation is the notion of a kind of
transccndcnt triba|isn: indigcnous Japan
nnding prina| kinship with thc Cc|ts.
It is also transcendent in that it rises
above prosaic categorizations to explore
a post-gender universality. So comme
des garons is ultimately also comme
dcs n||cs. No wondcr hci`s c|othcs arc
increasingly knotty. Theyll take cen tu-
ries to untangle.
TIMBLANKS, fashion critic, for 032c
Y
YAMAMOTO, YOHJI
The designer and Rei Kawakubo were a
couple from the Seventies till the early
Nineties.
000 000
The longer you live, the more life laughs in your
face. Life: that old friend and enemy who knows
all your secrets and tells them to you in the most
unexpected or inconvenient places: in bed, as you
drift off to sleep; in the cinema, as you drift into a
performers dream of a face; while swimming in
waters thick with salt, shafts of sunlight, murkiness.
Sometimes, in ones living, fragments of a former
self reappear, dressed to the nines, but always in
the wrong clothes. When, in memory, do we ever
look correct? Always, in my memory these days, I
look less standing next to my now dead father, not
that he was especially well-dressed. What my father
was: beautiful to many women, in part because
he was far away from the concerns of fashion;
in addition to having his own style soft V-neck
cardigans, sensible shoes for the long walks he loved
taking he was immune to social life; he lived more
or less by himself, even as he lived with other people.
Before he died I wasnt close to my father for many
years, but Ive generally been interested in men who
represent him sartorially; that is, Ive always been
interested in men who are immune to trend, and who
have the ability to treat clothes not as fashion but
as an element of self-expression, their own private
language made visible.
Hc was thc nrst onc I kncw who worc - anong
other things Comme des Garons. He was an art
director at the alternative weekly I wor ked at
back then; this must have been 1988 or so. Back
then, I didnt speak to my father, but I spoke to
him: he of the linen Comme des Garons jacket,
and collector of Rei Kawakubos Six Magazine,
that sharer of this hitherto unknown designer who
was categorized as a deconstructionist. What
did that mean? My now fast friend, the art director
showed me what that meant when he took me, one
afternoon, to Comme Des Garons SHIRT. There
was a shirt with half a collar, or a dress shirt with no
collar at all. He showed me this: a shirt could mean
something other than shirt, just as Gertrude Stein
had proved that a sentence could look and feel
and sound like something other than an ordinary
sentence. My friend was a rose was a rose was a rose.
He not only collected Gertrude Steins books, but
the occassional Comme des Garons piece, as he
called Rei Kawakubos clothes. (Before my friend,
I did not know that clothing could be art, or that
an underthing could be as beautiful and necessary
as a Brancusi, say.) My friend lived, at times, in
Kawakubos black rayon knickers. Or a striped
jacket with the armpits removed. In all his Comme
des Garons clothes, though (how we loved the name
of Rei Kawakubos enterprise, especially since we
didnt want to be boys at all!) there nested, always,
ny fricnd`s snc||. his uniquc nixturc of baby oi| and
coffee and perspiration. His odor made his clothes
his own. How we found one another, Ill never know.
Not content with my ability to love him, and my
great joy in learning from him, I shared him with a
wonan fricnd who had a grcat intcrcst in Japan and
design, too. One afternoon, we took her to Comme
Des Garons SHIRT, where my friend photographed
her wearing various Comme Des Garons shirts. In
some of the pictures you can see her face a face that
had the shape and contours, some of her friends
said. of thc faccs sccn in ancicnt Japancsc woodcuts.
Shc dicd nvc ycars ago. and bccausc ny fricnd |ovcd
her, I havent seen him since she died, and that is part
of his genius: to identify deeply with all manner of
the living and the dead, down to their clothes.
TO LOVE ALONE
Hilton Als
Z
ZERO
Collection after collection,
Kawakubo obliterates her past.
Koda, 2008.
www.032c.com