REI KAWAKUBO

In the first year at FMC, I was introduced to the avant-garde frivolities of Kawakubo’s designs for Comme des Garcons; I was confused to say the least. See, I am not ashamed to say I accustomed myself to the trend-driven brands when coming into university. And, when learning of such brands (like CDG) you begin to question WHAT THE IS THIS?! I know I did. I was naïve, believing I knew the ins and out of good fashion. How wrong was I…

My perception has changed incredibly now.

I see fashion through a new lens. A conceptual and innovative outlook which nit-picks the how’s what’s and why’s to a designer’s methodology.

My understanding and appreciation for the unique is substantial and I am profoundly lucky to have had the opportunity to explore such designers further in this setting. I now search for these outrageous and novel collections and have a broad keenness to dissect their stories. Something I never thought I’d say!

Rei Kawakubo approaches protest fashion through her own abstract scope. As founder of Comme des Garcons, Kawakubo has displayed deconstructionist style and unconventionality in fashion since 1969. An abstract from the book Critical Design In Japan: Material Culture, Luxury and the AvantGarde reads she “engaged with the politics of the body and identity and countered the aesthetic discourse and pressive values imposed by the fashion world through dress patterns and fashion photographs that presented women with an imaginary ‘ideal’ body” (Bartel, 2021).

Personally, I didn’t perceive Kawakubo as a ‘protest fashion’ leader. However, in reading the ideology behind the above concept, then conducting further research (particularly looking at her work from this angle) I can wholly respect the reasoning behind this title!

Kawakubo’s designs, to me, are a liberation. A freedom from the confinements and cultural/ social conventions of how one should look today. Her work for Comme des Garcons has a limitless approach to anti fashion, in that there are zero boundaries as to what one should create and conform with.

Contrary to the mainstream, the Japanese designer homes in on her visionary and defying perceptions to amalgamate outlandish shapes, asymmetrical pieces, and voluminous proportions. Described as “a kaleidoscope variety of identities- an artist yet true business thinker, a punk at heart, the queen of the avantgarde, and the caterer of the underground” (Material Magazine, 2017) I believe I resonate with this completely. My work underscores a multitude of genres and I find it difficult to define it as one.

I deeply admire Rei Kawakubo’s fortitude in challenging the conventions of Western fashion, who are synonymous for symmetrical and fitting garments and instead, producing the unorthodox. Kawakubo’s collections are a voice in itself, there is no radical nature in essence of behaviour, but a contest of definitions through complexity and experimentation of the body, as emphasised in figure 7. She is a progenitor of craft and innovation, affronting traditionalised norms and rejecting their beauty- something I am intrigued to invite into my working methods.

Revisiting Rei Kawakubo and her collective designs for CDG has pushed me to acknowledge the employment of layering, shape, and protrusion to create a statement. Fashion is her predominant force of language which she uses to dominate and blur the sexual politics of dress. Moving forward, I am inclined to work with a mannequin and test shoot how this could look for an FMP concept. I feel this mode of fashion matches the conceptual market I am proposing to, so I am keen to observe how this may align with the ideas I have fused so far.