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Rei Kawakubo was born in 1942-present (80 years) in Tokyo, Japan. She works in Tokyo as well as in Paris.

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Rei Kawakubo is a Japanese fashion designer and the founder of Comme des Garçons, a fashion brand with its flagship store based in Paris and Dover Street Market, a retailer originally located on Dover Street in London, and now with stores in New York City, Tokyo, Singapore, Los Angeles, and Beijing. Rei was not formally trained in fashion design but she studied fine arts at Keio University in Minato, Tokyo. Her father was also a teacher at a university in which Rei later studied "the history of aesthetics" of Asian and Western art. She started her career working as a freelance stylist for a textile company in 1967 and a couple years later began designing for her brand, Comme des Garçons which opened its first boutique in 1975.

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Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons, Blood and Roses, s/s 2015

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Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons, 18th-Century Punk, a/w 2016-17

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Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons fall 2021

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Rei Kawakubo, Installation view of Clothes/Not Clothes: War/Peace at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017

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Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons, s/s 2021

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Rei Kawakubo / Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between

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Rei Kawakubo’s great influence is seen in her unconventional design and forms in the avant garde scene. She is known for playing with silhouettes and changing standards of beauty and expectations of average conventions. Her brand is all about looking for something new, something that doesn’t exist. In 1969, she established her visionary company, Comme des Garçons, which is now a famous luxury brand. She is also the founder of Dover Street Market, a luxury clothing brand chain, circa 2004.

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Rei Kawakubo is an exceptional designer that takes her work to the next level beyond imagination and breaks down dangerous societal norms. I appreciate the themes she applies to her work such as how we perceive the body through her designs. In her “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body” collection from s/s 1997, she comments on the fashion industry's perception of the ideal body which she challenges with pieces that contain outgrowing layers. Her work is considered grotesque and dysmorphic by some which she proves to make her point about the ways in which women in much of the world are indoctrinated to make themselves look "perfect". While her pieces speak on the feminine body and form she believes that everyone no matter their gender should be able to express themselves through her work and that the possibilities of fashion are limitless. While these interpretations of her work are clear Rei tends to keep away from explaining her work further and typically responds with Zen Buddhist Koans and riddles which make us think deeper about her work, she has said, “I like to work with space and emptiness.” I will continue to admire her process as she is a great creative and human.

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Rei Kawakubo makes sure to set herself apart as a brand through her strong statements of non conformity and ambiguity in her creative process and identity.  “Not an artist, not a fashion designer”. This phrase feels counterintuitive, as that is how the world perceives her for the media she creates, but she chooses to leave her work undefined, simply just of her creations and company. "I want to think outside of the box in order to make something new," she said. She is always on the pursuit of being unique in her creations. She dislikes the idea of being labeled and normalized. "I never thought of making my own style. I just wear the things I make," she said.

"It's Comme des Garçons style."

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Compared to the Erotic Punk of the 18th century, you can see how Kawakubo manipulated the physical forms and silhouettes of this style in a playful and abstract manner for contemporary work. The silhouette of the beauty standard of a cinched waist was abstracted and exaggerated to be a clear point of non conventional rendition of this era.

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We can see in Kawakubo’s collection of “18th century punk” is an example of erotic play with inspiration from the past, in France’s extravagant 18th century in the French Revolution, a time of Enlightenment and changing ideals and rising social classes. It was a time of altering conventions, similar to Rei Kawakubo’s purpose in her avant garde work, so it is an appropriate allusion and connection in both of theses styles and Kawakubo’s rendition. The exaggerated silhouettes, frills, and patterns are very reminiscent of the era of 18th century France.