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It is a thing–if you ever happened to be in the presence of a Comme des Garcons work–which makes your brain execute a queer effect. It does not ask whether I would wear it or not. What is this saying? is the question it raises. That is what Rei Kawakubo has spent her whole career creating: such a pause, such a misconception, such a pull towards something you can never really put into words.
It is not a fashion in the common meaning of the word fashion. That is quite otherwise.
The Brand That Made the Fashion World Question Everything
It was never greeted with applause when Comme des Garcons was launched on the runway in Paris in 1981. Opponents were literally rocked. The clothing was simple, lopsided, deliberately shabby. Women put them on, as armor, or as wounds. This was an insult to Hiroshima as it was called the Hiroshima chic by the press. It was a compliment to Kawakubo.
That was where it was never again the same as fashion. Not in spite of what she gave the people who shared her vision but because she created an industry that had never put such a question before–can clothing be art? Not decorative art. Not prettiness in art. The true, clumsy, difficult art that makes you feel something you never imagined feeling.
Comme des Garcons did not just come into the fashion scene. It interrogated it.
Rei Kawakubo: The Artist Who Accidentally Became a Fashion Designer
That is what the majority of the people do not know about Rei Kawakubo; she did not learn fashion. She was a fine art and literature student of Keio University in Tokyo. She came into the world of clothing not via pattern making or tailoring, but via ideas. Through philosophy. Most Japanesely.
The Japanese also have a wabi-sabi philosophy to see beauty in imperfection, incompleteness, worn and irregular things. Ma is present, the art of the negative, of that which is not present, not there. And there is no awareness, a little melancholy of things that are going away.
All these ideas are present in one of the Vuori Joggers collections. The minute you know that, the clothes no longer seem queer. They are a visualization of feelings.
How Comme des Garçons Turns Fabric Into a Philosophy
Most fashion designers start with beauty. Kawakubo starts with a question. Each of her collections is a reply to a question to which she has not yet could have expressed herself. The clothes become a lingo.
Deconstruction, Imperfection, and the Beauty of “Ugly” Fashion
It is at this point that CDG comes out of all the other existing luxury brands on earth. In the process of achieving symmetry and refinement, which other designers are attempting to achieve, Kawakubo dismantles objects. Seams are exposed. Hems are left raw. Forms into balloons were not expected to form. The cloth is tattered, torn, knotted up and overlaid in nearly violent manners.
And yet– there is too much of a purpose in it. Nothing is accidental. All the weaknesses are options. What appears to be broken and what is art is the difference. One just occurred. The other was in full and full thought.
3 Iconic Collections That Belong in an Art Museum, Not a Wardrobe
The 1981 Paris Debut which Shocked the Whole Fashion Industry.
The one that started it all. Dark. Deconstructed. Beyond sickening to a company built on prettiness and lust. It was something they had never seen before; this is what the fashion critics who attended at the time said that it was like witnessing something they did not have words to describe it not because it was bad but because it was new. After 40 years, it is now taught in art schools, not just fashion schools, as a debut.
Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body — 1997’s Most Controversial Show
1981 was a challenge, 1997 was a challenge. Kawakubo attacked down the runway with padded lumps that were stitched directly into the models’ clothes – at the hips, at the back, at the shoulders. It distorted the human body to its end. The fashion world was divided. But the art community immediately interpreted it as a statement on the flesh, regarding the values of beauty, the relationship between what we wear and what we think of ourselves. It has been one of the most discussed sets of fashion.
When Fashion Literally Walked Into Art Galleries — CDG Collaborations
In 2017, The Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated an entire exhibition to Rei Kawakubo – the second living designer to receive such an honor in the history of the museum. The first was Yves Saint Laurent. That in itself is a statement of the status that the art world accords her.
Besides The Met, CDG has also come up with Dover Street Market which is a retailing space that has nine stores across different cities in the globe and is not a store, but a curated gallery. Photographers, artists and sculptors collaborate with CDG to install in each location. Shopping is personalized. Commerce becomes culture.
Why Fashion Collectors and Art Investors Are Buying Comme des Garçons
There has been an interesting phenomenon in the last decade. CDG collections, in particular archive collections, have begun to be auctioned alongside fine art, and purchasers of paintings and sculptures have begun to purchase Kawakubo work with the same interest: as an investment, as a cultural object, as something that can only be appreciated with time.
With a turnover of more than 300 million annually, CDG has proven that artistic vision and commercial success are not at cross purposes. They can be co-extensive – in case the sight is visionary enough.
How to Style Comme des Garçons If You Want to Wear Art Every Day
You will not be required to put on a padded sculptural device to channel CDG energy. Surprisingly it is even wearable in reality once you become acquainted with its basic principles. You can start with black – that is sure. Layers with textures not to be mixed. Choose shapes that are slightly too big, a bit off. Wear it to you so that you cease before you leave the house, wear it so that you know that you have chosen, not merely dressed.
CDG is not about looks. It is worrying that it does seem deliberate.
Where to Find Comme des Garçons Inspired Pieces and Shop the Look
It is not only that true CDG objects come with true CDG prices, but that to most people, that is not the case. But the taste, the temper, the sense of art? All that is available.
Commedegarcon.com is worth your time, should you become drawn to the ethos of the avant-garde Comme des Garcons: the graphic prints, the oversizing, the feeling of putting something on with a point of view. It brings that same art-forward boldness down to where it does not connote a second mortgage. What you paid to carry something is not all about the CDG look, but how.
Asymmetric cuts, graphic forms and building forms. Do not do anything too well-groomed, too well-paired, too safe. CDG style is a motivator that drives people who are ready to be quite strange in the most appropriate way.
