The Comme des Garçons "Universe"

[gin soaked boy]

And another short interview with Rei:

"When you put on clothes that are fighting against something, you can feel your courage grow."

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/fas...i-kawakubo-1#_

[tjhalvy]

cool.. hope to make it out there this year to visit.

[AKUTSU_MAYA]

A Portrait of Rei Kawakubo by Those Who Know Her Best

Ask anyone working in the fashion industry which living designer they most admire, and chances are they will say Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons. We ask some friends, from Stephen Jones to Nick Knight, Alexander McQueen to Björk, just what is it that makes the elusive designer such an unlikely figurehead for fashion, and print a rare written response from the lady herself.

Kawakubo is intentionally oblivious to the preoccupations that might motivate her contemporaries: the rise and fall of skirt lengths is of no consequence, the colour, fabric or reference du jour is not even remotely relevant in her world. Four times a year Kawakubo flies from her Tokyo base to Paris, bringing with her an entire, and entirely devoted team, and unveils her men’s and women’s collections, each one different from the last. One season the designer might decide that she’s only interested in skirts, for example – models’ top halves are naked – the next, doll-size dresses and jackets might be appliquéd to the front of life-size garments. One moment, the cliches of the Moulin Rouge, and erotica more broadly, might be dissected; the preconceptions of the bridal gown another.

Today, Kawakubo is such a revered name that it is all too easy to forget how challenging her trajectory has been, not only for those who have witnessed it but also – and even more so – for the designer personally. In the early days it was not uncommon for members of the principally Western and resolutely bourgeois fashion industry to run from her shows in their droves. Kawakubo, it was said when she first showed in Paris in 1981, was deliberately ruffling the feathers of those who watched on confounded, although that is probably not the case. The designer may be as determinedly anti-establishment as it is possible to be within the limits of the industry, but the overriding sense is that she is living and working on her own terms as opposed to being provocative for the sake of it.


"When I questioned her on the thinking behind her most recent offering, she sat down, drew a picture of a circle on a piece of paper, and promptly disappeared" - Susannah Frankel


In person, the designer is as difficult to pin down as her clothes. That she dislikes the face-to-face interview process is clear. The first time we met was more than ten years ago at her Paris headquarters, Place Vendôme. When I questioned her on the thinking behind her most recent offering, she sat down, drew a picture of a circle on a piece of paper, and promptly disappeared. This was all the more remarkable given that the season in question was the by now famous Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body 1997 collection, one of her personal favourites, featuring padded humps at shoulders and hips that were far from conventionally easy on the eye.

Since that time, we have met on many occasions. The designer sits patiently and always politely and answers all questions through any number of highly protective interpreters. But her response is, for the most part, deliberately, and at times prohibitively, opaque. Her company is called Comme des Garçons – as opposed to Rei Kawakubo – because as she has told me, she “just likes the way it sounds”. The colour gold reminds her of "Dubai, of the Vatican and of teapots" but she would rather not be taped making such observations, in fact, she would rather not be taped at all. Each season she issues a one- or two-word statement of intent – this season’s is "adult delinquent". No further explanation is offered, nor required, as far as she and her team are concerned.

There may be many reasons why Kawakubo resists verbal communication – one might attribute it to a deep mistrust of members the press who, let’s face it, were plain antipathetic when she started out or, simply to the fact that the designer may well just be shy. No matter because, in the end, all of Kawakubo’s energy goes into the further enhancement of the Comme brand from in-store display and design to fragrance and, over and above anything else, into clothes. This, along with the following deeply respectful responses from people who have been inspired, moved and even laughed at by Kawakubo, speaks volumes about the designer.

Continue here: http://www.anothermag.com/fashion-be...campaign=dazed

[kanne]

There will be a new book out later this year, to which I am contributing a long-ass-essay.

Any news on this, Faust? It's been over a year, I hope it wasn't cancelled... I was pretty excited, especially since you said it would be text-heavy.

[Faust]

Sorry, I dropped out of that project, so I don't know what's going on. I'll check.

[kanne]

Sorry to hear that, would have liked to read your essay. Yes, please let us know if you hear something!

[Nickefuge]

So have you already written the essay and will you maybe post it on the SZ blog? Or have you dropped out before you started working on it?

[MetroBulotDodo]

Theory happy people:

Gayatri Spivak writes about Rei Kawakubo in A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward A History of the Vanishing Present.

Has anyone come across the relevant sections anywhere online?

I'll look for scans of the pertinent sections online, otherwise I'll make the scans myself and post them here.

MBD

[gawkrodger]

no, but there's a half page summary of her argument here for anyone interested

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=A6McBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&dq=spivak+Rei+Kawakubo&source=bl&ots=BFt4Eyyqn9&sig=QYxJsdQxovu3UdT7gfPxtpyPNR0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhhtic1-rKAhUDPxoKHX7wAEwQ6AEIJTAB#v=onepage&q=spivak%20Rei%20Kawakubo&f=false

[Faust]

Any news on this, Faust? It's been over a year, I hope it wasn't cancelled... I was pretty excited, especially since you said it would be text-heavy.

So, the project is still in the works and is nearing completion.

[MetroBulotDodo]

Anyone here happen to know which collection from CDG had a small snowflake embroidered on each piece?

Are you talking about this sort of snowflake? They are crochet rather than embroidery...

This is from the 1988 AW "Red is Black" collection.




(my personal collection, as yet unarchived)

MBD

[MetroBulotDodo]

hi, sorry not 1999 but 1994, which i am curious if anyone has more to post. cindy sherman photographs. it turns out that i just bought 2 pieces from fall 1994 from a woman who was a press representative for CDG from 1995-1996 and also an intern during the summer of 1994. i need to pick her brain a bit and see if she can post more here to share her experiences.

also, this tumbler blog has some staggering images in it.

Are all the pieces with elastic incorporated into ethereally light skirts, coat and tops from SS 1994 then? I'd always thought, because there were a numbered of semi-sheer skirts cut on the bias in this collection, that it was part of the 1993 Dip-Dye collection...

One of my favorite pieces from my entire collection. In this piece, the lower 2/3rds of the dress doubles up to become a dual layered skirt. The elastic is stretched in various ways to hold the dress in place against the body.







Below: a cardigan with elastic belt at waist. The elastic can be worn around the bust, layered over another piece, or the elastic can looped around the cardigan and not stretched over the wearer's trunk...





Below: a base skirt made of wool with a second chiffon layer connected in front with ties that can be tied in a variety of ways...





MBD

[kanne]

So, the project is still in the works and is nearing completion.

Thank you for checking, very happy to hear that. I'm sure we'll find a review on sz-mag to remind us when it's released?

[Faust]

I am sure you will :-)

[nakklevaar]

When Rei says "I want to be forgotten", what could she mean? Or is it simply just as she said?