Rei Kawakubo: Fifty years like a day, against fashion, against everything


Because if the clothes can be instantly accepted by everyone, it means that they have not created anything new.

In the hierarchical fashion world, it is natural to reject and criticize these obscure and new things that people feel out of control - everyone wants to feel like a fish in water in their familiar territory, refusing to change, and fearing subversion.

Kawakubo said that she did not intend to start a change, but just wanted to make a new statement, and happened to have different ideas from others.

The controversy she generated was enormous and the attention was unprecedented. Jean Paul Gaultier, known for his bold, avant-garde aesthetic, said: "It was a shock of this magnitude for the first time, at a time when fashion was conventional and boring, and she brought a very strong new power."

Karl Lagerfeld, who was already on the rise at the time, also praised his peer, "Although you can see the ugly side, although you can feel negative emotions such as fear, but there is a new beauty."

Subsequent collections continued to reinforce this "new aesthetic", such as Comme des Garcons' 1982 Autumn/Winter collection "Holes", where black tops covered in holes and holes were described by fashion critic Suzy Menkes as "Swiss cheese sweaters". Kawakubo, on the other hand, calls it "new lace", which is another way of looking at fabric.

She does not like the kind of polished smooth and flawless, without a hint of industrial sense, such "loopholes", such imperfections and unfinished, only more interesting, only more able to highlight the value of ordinary things.

Kawakubo has never been concerned about those entrenched rules and regulations, and even publicly stated that she is not interested in fashion, "only interested in new and unprecedented clothes themselves"; She looks like an outsider looking at the whole situation, quietly drilling into the center of the system, a shock to the aesthetics of the hundred years of domination.

Without the presence of the news media, Rei Kawakubo might not have intended to attach a single word of explanation to her creation.

Few of the pre-1981 Comme des Garcons collections have been written about, and most don't even have names.

It was not until she came to Paris, in the face of the media with a mature operation system, and in the face of the swarm of reporters, that she conceived a topic for each series with the mentality of handing in homework.

Rather than a title, it is actually more of a puzzle, which makes people more confused while providing information - the 1983 Spring/Summer collection "Patchworks and X" (Patchworks and X), the 1987 spring/summer collection "Young Fashion," Young Chic, No shoulder, 1987 Fall/Winter collection "White Shirt+Pants, Khaki, Lili Marleen" (White Shirt+Pants, Khaki, Lili Marleen)... Words that seem to have nothing to do with each other are thrown together at random.

In this regard, she is very honest, said that she does not like to explain the clothing, whether it is the process of production, or the theme or meaning, because a good work should speak for itself, what you see and feel, far more vivid than plausible information.

For example, Comme des Garcons' most iconic spring/Summer 1997 collection, "Body Meets Dress - Dress Meets Body", the shoulders, waist, buttocks and other places are filled with rich down, It looks like a deformed lump spreading from every part of the body, which is both integrated with the body and the shape of the body itself - sexy, thin, fat, it is difficult to use any common words to describe the scene.

When the eyes are fed, we can't help but start to wonder about the design intention behind it, is it about the gender paradigm, about the aesthetic standards imposed by the human body, or about the relationship between clothing and the body?

Compared to these autonomous thought processes, it no longer matters what the final answer is, Kawakubo's purpose has been achieved.

Fashion historian and curator Valerie Steele said: "Her work had a kind of violence, even a brutalism, that made most fashion at the time seem simple and vulgar." From that moment on, avant-garde art split from the mainstream and galloped in its own direction." Although Kawakubo was silent, she still stirred the ripples of thought.

If it's any consolation to the public, journalists, and anyone who has ever experienced Kawakubo's reticence, she still has precious words for the editor she has worked closely with for decades.

When she has the prototype of the series in mind, she will communicate with the designer through a few vague words or random descriptions, such as "the edge of the pillowcase when changed", "a kind of wrinkled cardboard played in childhood", etc., relying on tacit understanding to pass the baton of design.

In the documentary "Rei Kawakubo's Challenge" released by Japan's NHK television station in 2001, even the printer who worked for Rei Kawakubo for more than ten years found it difficult to get the "question" issued by her personally.

Because each time is something completely different, there is very little reference data left and you have to start all over again. The reason for this operation is that in Kawakubo's view, if the layout diagram is provided directly, everyone will undoubtedly follow it, without any room for thinking and innovation.

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