Portrait of Rei Kawakabo

Rei Kawakubo. Just the name inspires shivers of excitement and pangs of anticipation in the world of fashion.

Kawakubo made a name for herself in the emergent Japanese fashion scene of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Her overt reliance on black fabric and asymmetry, disdain for hiding seams and penchant for unfinished edges helped give birth to the term ‘Hiroshima Chic’.

The iconic Japanese designer is a recluse who rarely attends her own shows, even at hallmark events like Paris Fashion Week. When she does, she does not bow to acknowledge the applause. An aura of enigma is her constant companion. The other is Adrian Joffe, her husband, confidant, business partner and translator. She rarely speaks to anyone but him in public.

We attempt to unravel the esoteric grand dame of the world of high fashion and peel back some of the layers to catch a glimpse of the person behind the name.

Genesis & Journey

Rei Kawakubo was born in Tokyo in tumultuous times. Her birth date of 11 October 1942 means that she was just three years old when the atomic bombs ended the Second World War.

Kawakubo once described her work as similar to Zen ‘koans’, unsolvable puzzles set by Buddhist teachers.

Kawakubo was the eldest of three children and the only girl. Both her parents were in academia – her father was an administrator at the prestigious Keio University and her mother was a teacher. She graduated in 1964 with a fine arts degree, majoring in ‘the history of aesthetics’ where she explored Eastern and Western art.

Her first foray into employment was in the advertising department of a textiles manufacturer. When she could not find the perfect props and costumes, Kawakubo was given the freedom to make them herself. The experience gave her the confidence to strike out on her own as a freelance stylist in 1967.

Within two years, the clothes she was making garnered enough attention for her to create her own label, the now legendary Comme des Garçons (CDG). The company was incorporated in 1973 and opened its first boutique in 1975. The focus was entirely on women’s clothing until 1978 when she added a men’s range.

The signature line has been expanded considerably, and now features several unique clothing ranges, wallets, jewellery and perfumes. Kawakubo has collaborated on exclusive collections with the world’s largest brands, including Louis Vuitton, Fendi, H&M and Levi’s.

Kawakubo’s designs Fall/Winter 2005, Spring/Summer 2012.

She has also mentored two very successful Japanese designers, Junya Watanabe and Tao Kurihara, who now release their work under the CDG parent label.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Kawakubo was in a relationship with Yohji Yamamoto, another designer who made a name for himself on the Hiroshima Chic scene. In 1993, she married Adrian Joffe who is ten years her junior. Joffe had been with the company since 1987 and the couple had been dating for about a year beforehand. She still lives in Tokyo while her husband is based in Paris but they fly frequently between the two cities.

Her Work

That Kawakubo experienced first-hand the aftermath of the War leads many to conclude that those trying times are the inspiration for her ‘raggedy’ clothes and the overemphasis on black.

Kawakubo disagrees and is quick to dissociate from such interpretations and analyses, which she considers a “misunderstanding” of her work. She reiterates that her creativity feeds from a wider perspective and has “nothing to do with politics or war”.

Part of Kawakubo’s Fall/Winter 2015 collection (left), and Spring/Summer 2017 (right) collection.

“Although I never went hungry I remember well the extreme poverty and devastation of those times. But this had no bearing on my work whatsoever. These critics had it all wrong… Growing up in postwar Japan has made me the person I am, but it is not why I do the work I do. It is a very personal thing – everything comes from inside.”

When Kawakubo released her first line in 1982, “Destroy”, the dominance of black, the colour of mourning and darkness led critics to refer to her designs as ‘post-atomic’ insinuating the traumatic dropping of the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. But to Kawakabo, black was not just a colour but an entire palette and in that she shaped the way designers looked at the colour (within a decade, black was a staple of every major designer’s range)
.

Kawakubo’s 1997 Dress Meets Body, Body Meets Dress Collection which fans fondly referred to as “lumps and bumps“.

It was a rebellious choice at the time but her irreverent approach soon permeated to the world’s most influential fashion designers. Kawakubo stamped her presence in fashion history with what was essentially a simple black sweater dotted with holes. She called it ‘lace’ and as a fabric with perforations, she was technically not wrong. But it was the way Kawakubo challenges the convention that makes her work unparalleled. She presented ‘lace’ not as something precious, delicate and civilised but instead, as something discomfiting and heathenish.

Holes and perforations appear frequently in her clothes, puncturing places where carefully tailored parts should be. Kawakubo’s 2008 Fall/Winter collection took heart and lip-shaped chunks off her clothes, and for emphasis, she encircled the holes with folds of ribbons and ruffles. It is typical of Kawakubo to place focus on voidness or absence rather than the fabric around it. It is her way of highlighting ‘nothingness’ or ‘emptiness’. To Kawakubo, this nothingness or “mu” (Japanese word meaning ‘to not have’ or ‘without’) is key to her design process. When asked what she meant to convey, she answered in a 1995 interview which is characteristically rare of Kawakubo, that ‘nothing’ is contained and the meaning is that there is no meaning.

Ironically, Kawakubo does not necessarily regard herself as an artist. Most artists and designers profess altruistic motivations and selfless devotion to their art. Kawakubo seems to regard such protestations as beneath her. The one point that she almost invariably makes in every interview is that she is a businesswoman. While honest, Kawakubo is as self-deprecatory as artistic geniuses come, denouncing some of her work such as her 2005 Fall/Winter collection and her 2012 Spring/Summer designs as being too pretty and too easily understood by the audience.

Similarly Kawakubo criticised her own Spring/Summer 2012 collections as having being too easily understood by her audience.

The CDG colour palette has widened somewhat since those early days. Kawakubo said in 2008 that while she has always had an affinity for black, it has now become “as habitual as denim”. Contrary as always, she added that she now seeks “tomorrow’s black”.

Kawakubo lives in Tokyo’s ritzy Aoyama neighbourhood, within walking distance of the CDG flagship store. CDG and its affiliated companies are worth close to US$300 million. Interviewed during the devastating financial crisis a decade ago, she unceremoniously swatted down the idea of adjusting her collection to suit the times.

“Comme des Garçons has always travelled at its own pace and will continue to do so. In good times and bad times the company is more or less the same.”

Kawakubo’s approach to work is said to be almost “military”. She is apparently the first one to arrive at the Aoyama CDG store and the last to leave every day. Her raised office at the centre of the premises gives her a complete overview of the goings-on. Staff troop about in uniforms of CDG’s characteristic black but polka dot shoes complete the look.

Acclaim

Kawakubo’s 1997 Dress Meets Body, Body Meets Dress Collection which fans fondly referred to as “lumps and bumps“.

Kawakubo’s work has its detractors, particularly for their occasional ‘un-wearability’. The criticism was particularly loud in 1997 when she revealed her spring/summer range, Dress Meets Body, Body Meets Dress. It featured padding that rendered the wearer’s female form almost unrecognizable as a human’s. It was branded the “lumps and bumps” and the “Quasimodo” collection. As has become her trademark, Kawakubo’s designs first shock the audience with incomprehension but soon this disbelief is replaced with visual memories that transcend time.



”You can tell if it’s a good collection if people are afraid of it,” she once said. “In 10 years, everyone will love it.” – Rei Kawakubo

But her non-conformance has won her widespread acclaim, too. The iconic Japanese designer is only the second living designer (after Yves Saint Laurent) to have been featured with a retrospective at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, 2017).

Rei Kawakubo’s 1982 design that stamped her mark in design history. Now displayed at The Victoria & Albert Musuem, London; her 2008 Fall/Winter collection.

The French government appointed her a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters in 1993. She has won the 1986 Fashion Group International award and the 2000 Excellence in Design Award from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

The slew of accolades and awards has contributed to her status as a legend but Kawakubo could not be less interested. She had told an interviewer who asked her how she wanted to be remembered that, “I want to be forgotten.”

A few years later, just before the 2017 Met Exhibition, he asked if her feelings had changed. she replied, “It is more and more true.”

I am not a connoisseur of fashion nor have any interest. So why did I blog about this colorful and talented lady along with her creations? I admire talent. That is my reason. I simply admire talent with tenacity of any genre. Without tenacity, talent cannot manifest. My kudos to Ms. Rei Kawakubo and her extreme talent which makes you think deeper.

Sincerely, Tsem Rinpoche

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