What defines the style of Comme des Garçons, the famous Japanese fashion label whose French name means “like for boys” even though it was founded for women? deconstruction. When Rei Kawakubo launched her prêt-à-porter brand, launched twelve years earlier in Japan, in 1981 – with the hosting of a fashion show in Paris – she was initially labeled as the Far Eastern counterpart of the already established punk designer Vivienne Westwood. The English colleague would not dare to take the step from home to the fashion Mecca until a year later. And unlike Westwood, the clothes that Kawakubo presented were not cut up, deranged or undone, but rather cut, arranged and thrown out – in other words, artfully devastated. In Japan, there is a concept of beauty for this Wabi said: Asymmetry and wear and tear as an aesthetic principle.
An example of this, almost 40 years later: a men’s jacket from the 2020 collection (Kawakubo has only been designing for men since 1984, and she had the fun of naming this line “Comme des Garçons Homme plus” – As for boys now also for the man, one could translate that). What was originally a frock-length cut has been folded and sewn into a normal-length jacket that then looks like a Frankenstein-style fabric. Not only do bulges of fabric and overhanging edges run through the front and back sections, the lapels are also sewn on and the pockets sewn shut. Even the brand label on the inner lining is half sewn up. But fine white seams are quilted in a square pattern over this black battlefield – without any regard for the nature of the subsoil. This turns the apparent flaw into a miracle.
Like boys
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Designer Rei Kawakubo turns 80
Kawakubo quickly made an international splash in the 1980s, alongside fellow countrymen Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake. They established the unmistakable stretchy black cotton fabric on the market, the material properties of which enabled the flowing shapes of their designs. But only Kawakubo came up with the idea of sewing in a fiery red silk fabric as a lining so that the edges of the sleeves stick out, decorating classic Savile Row pinstripes with silver rivets, or spray-spraying buttoned garments with dye during manufacture, leaving covered areas undyed remained, which then becomes visible when worn openly.
An unusual career
Born in Tokyo in 1942, Kawakubo’s art studies will have been just as useful for such coloring and collage work as his brief stint in a chemical company. But self-employment for a woman was unusual in Japan in the 1960s; This is another reason why, unlike her male colleagues, she did not choose her own name to describe her company. However, Comme des Garçons fashion has left the competition far behind in terms of popularity and global reach, and Rei Kawakubo is still the sole owner of the company with her husband as CEO.
She now leaves the designing to her former assistants, but they have internalized the style and material preferences of the boss in such a way that when it comes to deconstructive fashion, you can still bet on where it comes from: from the Tokyo district of Minato, where Rei Kawakubo is wearing hers this Tuesday celebrating eightieth birthday.