{"id":123251,"date":"2020-04-30T16:07:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T14:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highxtar.com\/?p=123251"},"modified":"2020-04-30T16:09:14","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T14:09:14","slug":"decoding-rei-kawakubos-anti-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highxtar.com\/en\/decoding-rei-kawakubos-anti-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"Decoding Rei Kawakubo’s anti-fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 1970s, Rei Kawakubo began writing a kind of anti-fashion bible that we have professed to this day. That book will probably guide the fashion system for many more years, just because its transgressive ethos already seems to be part of eternity. We navigate through the factors that made the Japanese designer a legend in fashion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Rei<\/p>\n

Going against the system and the status-quo of fashion<\/strong> led Rei Kawakubo<\/strong> to be the great ‘misunderstood’ by an industry without oxygen, limited to four walls. Critics never understood the creative who would later become the founder of the renowned brand Comme Des Gar\u00e7ons<\/strong>, as well as one of the world’s most exciting multi-brand retailers<\/strong>, known as Dover Street Market<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But beyond the design, the important thing was the ideas woven behind the garments. If Coco Chanel freed women from the corset, Kawakubo took a blindfold off society, showing a reality in which conventional beauty standards were diluted from the garments<\/strong>. Thus, it marked the beginning of the anti-fashion era<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It is amazing how this source of inspiration<\/strong> for all designers and fashion enthusiasts did not really study fashion design<\/strong>, but graduated in art and literature from Cairo University in 1964. Kawakubo was totally self-taught<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Rei<\/p>\n

Without a previous and consistent training in the sector, Rei Kawakubo started her journey in fashion as a stylist<\/strong>, seeing how in that creative frame she could not find the clothes she was looking for. So, she started to design her own pieces in a handmade way; some of them would have the name Comme des Gar\u00e7ons<\/strong><\/a> inscribed on the label in 1969<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In 1975<\/strong> Kawakubo decided to open its first boutique in Japan<\/strong>, first through a womenswear proposal, and then to extend it to the menswear field. At that time, everyone was already talking about their creations. Rei Kawakubo was already beginning to alter fashion and its foundations<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

THE BLACK CROWS THAT SHOOK UP THE SYSTEM<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In the 80s, Rei already had several stores in Japan, where he exhibited pieces bathed in tones ranging from white to gray and black. She started with a very dark color palette, like funeral clothes. So society began calling the designer a ‘crow’<\/strong>, pigeonholed into a kind of ‘crow gang’, which included icons Issey Miyake<\/strong> and Yohji Yamamoto<\/strong>. They would revolutionize fashion and beauty forever<\/strong> through dark, oversized, asymmetrical clothing.<\/p>\n

\"Crow<\/p>\n

The ‘crow’ movement<\/strong> was the reason why black people massively dyed the catwalk and streetstyle around the world. Fans known as ‘the crows’<\/strong> or karasu-zoku<\/strong> (tribe of the crows) wore that avant-garde fashion of haute couture, rejecting the clich\u00e9s and glamorous look of the 80s to dye their looks black. They refused to be part of the standards, to wear those androgynous and asymmetric silhouettes signed by designers like Miyake<\/strong>, Kawakubo<\/strong> or Yamamoto<\/strong><\/a>, with whom Rei had a love affair at the end of the 70s.<\/p>\n

\"Yohji<\/p>\n

THE KAWAKUBO’S KINGDOM<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Beyond the crow, Rei Kawakubo was beginning to be a focus of inspiration<\/strong> for her draped silhouettes and unfinished pieces. Deconstruction<\/strong>, which is a very recurrent technique today, was beginning to become part of fashion thanks to the Japanese designer, who was strongly criticized at the time for her debut presentation<\/strong> for Paris Fashion Week (1982)<\/strong>. That capsule called ‘Destroy’<\/strong> presented perforated looks and draped silhouettes that no longer delineated the woman’s body, but let it flow freely.<\/p>\n

\"Comme<\/p>\n

CDG’s advertising campaigns<\/strong> became a key element in communicating that anti-system aura in which the dividing line between fashion and art disappears. Comme des Gar\u00e7ons 1988<\/strong> was a great example of this; of reflecting that anti-hedonist<\/strong> world that has a lot to say to the system.<\/p>\n

\"Comme<\/p>\n