Rei Kawakubo

Widely recognized as among the most important and influential designers of the past forty years, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons has defined and transformed the visual language of our time. Since her Paris debut in 1981, she has blurred the divide between art and fashion and transformed customary notions of the body, beauty and identity. This lavishly illustrated publication weaves an illuminating narrative around Kawakubo's revolutionary experiments in interstitiality—the space between boundaries. Brilliant new photographs of more than 120 examples of Kawakubo's womenswear for Comme des Garçons, accompanied by Kawakubo's commentary on her designs and creative process, reveal her conceptual and challenging aesthetic as never before. A chronology of Kawakubo's career provides additional context, and an insightful conversation with the author offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of this fashion visionary.

The Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons is undoubtedly one of the world's major fashion designers. In 2017 she was the second living designer to ever be given a retrospective at the renowned Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her work exerts an extraordinary influence over succeeding generations of designers and is a major point of reference for all those wishing to explore the place of fashion in contemporary culture. The 14 essays in this collection, written by eminent fashion theorists from around the world, ask what is the relationship of Kawakubo's work to art, philosophy and architecture, and ultimately illustrate how Kawakubo's creative output allows us to understand the very notion of fashion itself.

One of the most elusive fashion designers in the world, Rei Kawakubo of Japan, is known for remaking the forms of clothes. Her sweaters full of holes, jackets with only one sleeve and dresses that are part dress and part pants are unique, yet always wearable. She says she wants to "design clothes that have never yet existed." The exhibition included over 40 key garments, costumes from and film of the Cunningham performance, photographs, runway footage and ephemera. The exhibition aimed to present a view of Kawakubo's work as a series of interventions and dis-ruptions in the arena of style and fashion: whether her work is thought of as anti-fashion in the world of fashion, or of ugliness and clumsiness in a system classically devoted to good taste, Kawakubo's work is a constant process of renewal of vocabulary and thinking.

Over the past 40 years, Japanese designers have led the way in aligning fashion with art and ideology, as well as addressing identity and social politics through dress. They have demonstrated that both creative and commercial enterprise is possible in today's international fashion industry, and have refused to compromise their ideals, remaining autonomous and independent in their design, business affairs and distribution methods. The inspirational Miyake, Yamamoto and Kawakubo have gained worldwide respect and admiration and have influenced a generation of designers and artists alike. Based on twelve years of research, this book provides a richly detailed and uniquely comprehensive view of the work of these three key designers. It outlines their major contributions and the subsequent impact that their work has had upon the next generation of fashion and textile designers around the world. Designers discussed include: Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, Naoki Takizawa, Dai Fujiwara, Junya Watanabe, Tao Kurihara, Jun Takahashi, Yoshiki Hishinuma, Junichi Arai, Reiko Sudo & the Nuno Corporation, Makiko Minagawa, Hiroshi Matsushita, Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Walter Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and Helmut Lang.

The Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons is undoubtedly one of the world's major fashion designers. In 2017 she was the second living designer to ever be given a retrospective at the renowned Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her work exerts an extraordinary influence over succeeding generations of designers and is a major point of reference for all those wishing to explore the place of fashion in contemporary culture. The 14 essays in this collection, written by eminent fashion theorists from around the world, ask what is the relationship of Kawakubo's work to art, philosophy and architecture, and ultimately illustrate how Kawakubo's creative output allows us to understand the very notion of fashion itself.

Shortlisted for the Millia Davenport Publication Award Experimental Fashion traces the proliferation of the grotesque and carnivalesque within contemporary fashion and the close relation between fashion and performance art, from Lady Gaga's raw meat dress to Leigh Bowery's performance style. The book examines the designers and performance artists at the turn of the twenty-first century whose work challenges established codes of what represents the fashionable body. These innovative people, the book argues, make their challenges through dynamic strategies of parody, humour and inversion. It explores the experimental work of modern designers such as Georgina Godley, Bernhard Willhelm, Rei Kawakubo and fashion designer, performance artist, and club figure Leigh Bowery. It also discusses the increased centrality of experimental fashion through the pop phenomenon, Lady Gaga.

Here, from the incomparable John Waters, is a paean to the power of subversive inspiration that will delight, amuse, enrich—and happily horrify readers everywhere. Role Models is, in fact, a self-portrait told through intimate profiles of favorite personalities—some famous, some unknown, some criminal, some surprisingly middle-of-the-road. From Esther Martin, owner of the scariest bar in Baltimore, to the playwright Tennessee Williams; from the atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair to the insane martyr Saint Catherine of Siena; from the English novelist Denton Welch to the timelessly appealing singer Johnny Mathis—these are the extreme figures who helped the author form his own brand of neurotic happiness. Role Models is a personal invitation into one of the most unique, perverse, and hilarious artistic minds of our time.