Designer Analysis: Rei Kawakubo

Monika Bickham Introduction to Fashion Business Designer Analysis Rei Kawakubo

Judging a designer’s personality based off his or her clothing may not always prove itself accurate. If someone were to form an opinion on designer Rei Kawakubo simply by looking at her label Comme des Garçons, they’d probably use adjectives like unconventional, dauntless and surreal, and they’d be completely right. The now 71-year-old Japanese designer is known not just for her innovative clothing but also her rebellious and conflicting personality.

Rei Kawakubo was born in Tokyo, Japan on October 11 in 1942. Her parents were both instructors, with her father as a professor at her alma mater Keio University, “a private school oriented towards Western culture and women’s rights” and her mother an English teacher. As the oldest of three children and the only girl, Kawakubo possess many personality traits of the quintessential first born; she’s a natural leader, an achiever and controlling. In Judith Thurman’s profile “THE MISFIT” of Kawakubo she notes one of the designer’s younger brothers who works for Comme des Garçons is referred to as “Mister” because she was to be the only “Kawakubo-san” in the company.

In 1960 she enrolled at Keio University studying “The History of Aesthetics” as well as Asian and Western art and literature, all of which helped to cultivate her

unprecedented brand and image. When she was 22 years old after she graduated, she moved into an apartment in Harajuku, an area known for attracting rebellious young people like Kawakubo, without telling her parents in 1964. Her rebellious spirit didn’t manifest itself without influence, seeing as though her mother divorced her father once he disapproved of she and the children working when they were of age; something unheard of from Japanese women during the time. In the article Kawakubo remembers her mother being “unlike other mothers” and because of it she “always felt like an outsider.”

Just a year after her big move, Kawakubo embarked on yet another life-changing experience when she began working at Ashai Kasei, a company that specializes in producing acrylic fibers, as an advertiser and promoter until 1968. While working at Ashai Kasei a few things happened, one of those things was her understanding of textiles and fabrics (and the importance of its delivery in fashion socially and politically) that she would use in her future clothing for Comme des Garçons. “The class system that governed fabrication was another. Kawakubo ennobled poor materials and humbled rich ones, which were sent off to be reeducated in the same work camp with elasticated synthetics and bonded polyester. She crumpled her silks like paper and baked them in the sun; boiled her woolens so that they looked nappy; faded and scrubbed her cottons; bled her dyes; and picked at her threadwork.” Her use of fabrication is important because they redefined poor and rich fabrics while creating beautiful and unconventional looks and designs. The other important event that happened to Kawakubo at Ashai Kasei is meeting her lifelong friend/mentor/fashion journalist Atsuko

Kozasu who introduced her to the field of fashion. Because of his support and encouragement she began a career as a freelance stylist in 1967, but soon became frustrated with the job because she couldn’t find the proper clothing for her photo shoots; this frustration led her to begin creating her own clothing under the name Comme des Garçon (a French phrase for ‘like boys’ or ‘like some boys’) in 1969.

Her first show under Comme des Garçon debuted in Paris of 1981 and featured pieces that were all black made of unusual shapes and patterns. According to Harold Koda’s “Rei Kawakubo and the Art of Fashion” the line was met with both enthusiasm and befuddlement. Kawakubo’s unfamiliar approach to clothing stems from her unfamiliar process, which isn’t at all perfect and straightforward.

Since she isn’t a trained fashion designer she spends no time sketching and adhering to the normalcy of fashion designs, techniques and silhouettes, she is able to construct designs that go against the very essence of fashion. “Liberated from the rules of construction, she pursues her essentially intuitive and reactive solutions, which often result in forms that violate the very fundamentals of apparel. By originating the process of design on each occasion, for every collection, Kawakubo is able to achieve effects liberated from the traditional parameters of tailoring and draping techniques.” Because of the rebellious nature her clothing take on, she is often referred to as an “anti-fashion” designer whose clothing goes against the current structures and politics of fashion. Initially Comme des Garçon clothing wasn’t sized because it was a more independent

brand with great social and political responsibility even if it wasn’t Kawakubo’s intention at the time. “Kawakubo’s silhouette had nothing to do with packaging a woman’s body for seduction. In Kawakubo’s voluminous clothes one felt provocative yet mysterious and protected. They weren’t sized, and they weren’t conceived on a svelte fitting model, then inflated to a sixteen.” During this time I feel Comme des Garçon’s consumer was for women who shared the designer’s rebellious spirit and was looking for clothes that expressed their individuality, independent thinking and body autonomy that scared away men. However, once the brand turned more commercial, sizing was incorporated and a men’s line was introduced in 1978. Now Comme des Garçon’s have over 28 different lines including: womenswear, menswear, sports, color-specific lines like black and pink, streetwear, knits, accessories, perfumes and collaboration lines with major retailers like H&M. Kawakubo is also very involved with every stage of production for Comme des Garçon: she works with textile weavers, manufacturers, designers, promotion and sales.

Judith Thurman published a profile of Kawakubo for the New Yorker titled “THE MISTFIT” on July 4th 2005. The article, which was beautifully written, gave readers and longtime admirers of Kawakubo, yet another layer to the woman behind the brand. Rei Kawakubo the woman, the brand and the misfit. I think one of the things that make this profile work is the amount of story telling and the use of story telling. I wasn’t weighed down by facts in chronological order and everything was painted in color, it’s the reason why I referenced it throughout.

Reading this article I felt I learned more about Rei Kawakubo and the smaller experiences that are often over looked which complemented the story just as well as the bigger experiences. From the way she bunched her socks down regardless of the school’s uniform code as a girl to her romantic relationship with fellow designer Yohji Yamamoto, I got to know Rei Kawakubo the designer and the person and how both influenced her art and designs. A well-done profile should always grab the reader’s attention, keep it throughout and finally leave the reader feeling better or more knowledgeable about the subject; THE MISFIT does all this and more.

What captured my attention about Rei Kawakubo’s presentation was/is the theatricality of her clothing. She goes against every fashion “rule” and creates clothing that is wildly unsymmetrical, blatantly aggressive/provocative and filled with personality. There’s also a looming darkness and mystique her designs possess which I gravitate towards. I love all things whimsical, dark and avantgarde and I feel her clothing provides me with all of the above. I have similar views to Alexander McQueen’s collections and shows before he passed. Both I feel create/created clothing designs that went beyond fashion by breaking rules and as a result redefining fashion design and combining art. Her story and clothing is important in fashion because she knocked down so many barriers and created a new meaning of fashion/art. She went against the norm yet was still able to be successful and pioneer and influence future designers and the fashion world overall. I also think her story as a Japanese woman and woman of color is

just as important as her designs. The fashion world, I think needs more voices and faces like Rei Kawakubo’s to influence other similar voices and faces.

Bibliography: all information was gathered from the below resources only.

Koda, Harold, Sylvia Lanvin, and Rei Kawakubo. Refusing Fashion: Rei Kawakubo. S.1: Museum of Contemporary Art of Detroit, 2008. Print.

Bernadine Morris, “From Japan, New Faces, New Shapes”, NYT, 14 December 1982, C.10. 2 “Paris: Tough and Tender”, WWD, 12 March 1998, 4-5.

Hill, Judith. “The Misfit.” The New Yorker 4 July 2005. Print.