r/CommedesGarcons

I've posted an interview with Rei before on how her designs for men come from the tradition of menswear tailoring. I thought it'd be interesting to show what that looks like, using archive runway footage all the way from 96AW Traditional, 97AW Magic of Bias; to 13AW Tree of Youth, 14SS Hatching and ultimately 20SS Orlando.

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Bonus: An interesting excerpt from 032c’s article, ABC of CdG.

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In fashion, it was the year of the Japanese. And no one in that ultra-sensitive land, where every stitch can set off an earthquake, rattled more sake cups than Rei Kawakubo – not even her talented compatriots Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto. From Paris to Tokyo her followers are striding about in Kawakubo’s mournful, strangely cut garments, black socks and rubber shoes.

Rei’s critics hold the 41-year-old designer responsible for perpetrating a formless, asexual look. ‘Her clothes don’t touch or mold the body,’ complains traditionalist French designer Sonia Rykiel. ‘There’s a lack of softness.’ But Rei’s supporters credit her with some of the most startling and influential designs out of Japan today.’ Rei is an original,’ says Bendel Vice-President Jean Rosenberg. ‘She is a master of intricate cuts.”

Kawakubo, the most radical of the new wave of Japanese designers, pronounces Western skintight garments ‘quite boring,’ adding, ‘I design for women who are beyond that.’ What sort of woman? ‘The bag lady of New York,’ Kawakubo replied fliply when asked by Women’s Wear Daily.

“Rei’s now historic advance on the West took place only two years ago. Her first show in Paris caused one of the biggest furores since Stravinsky introduced The Rite of Spring. Like Stravinsky, Rei coolly mocked conventions – shredding and poking holes in skirts, tops and dresses. In the US, where her clothes still baffle the uninitiated eye, Rei’s success is growing rapidly. She now has outposts in nine US cities, with her own boutique in Manhattan’s breathlessly fashionable SoHo district.’

Japan’s Stravinsky of Fashion Rocks the World with her Atonal, Assymetric Sad Rags,” People Weekly, December 26, 1983.

Elsa Klensch: When did you first become interested in fashion?
Rei Kawakubo: When I was about 24. I’d been working in the adverstising department of a textile company, and I was asked to style the print ads and TV commercials. I liked the work so much that after two years I decided to leave the firm and work as a freelance stylist.

EK: Later, when you decide to become a designer, was it because you couldn’t find clothes you thought were right for your work?
RK: It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t find the kinds of clothes I wanted. I was frustrated by the way we chose the clothes.

EK: When and how did you get started?
RK: In about 1969 I rented a room that was part of a Tokyo graphics design studio and set up with two assistants.

EK: What sort of clothes did you produce?
RK: Clothes I felt were modern and new. But they were commercial as well; I was in business, and I had to support myself.

EK: How did you decide on the name Comme des Garçons?
RK: I don’t remember exactly. I know I wanted something long, something with a ring to it. One of the people working with me said, “How about ‘Comme des Garçons?’” And I thought, “Why not?”

EK: Your own name has a ring to it.
RK: I didn’t think of myself as a designer. It was a business, a group of people working together. I wanted a name that would represent the whole group.

Elsa Klensch, “Another World of Style … Rei Kawakubo,” Vogue (New York), August 1987.

KARI RITTENBACH: For a designer – or rather, aesthete – whose otherworldly ascent in fashion is accounted for by no less a creation myth than the flattest plateau of “starting from zero” (the uncouth postwar epithet “Hiroshima’s Revenge” attended CDG’s earliest presentations), it is certainly apposite to examine how Kawakubo allows herself to be historicized after the fact. A deconstructivist with a paradoxically tightly controlled image, Kawakubo toys with cultural and historical references as adroitly, or as murkily, as the most prodigious Postmodernist – and in so doing has fashioned a history all her own.

But what came before the legend? What was the reception to early Comme des Garçons in Japan like during the seventies? (Kawakubo began producing clothing for CdG as early as 1969.) Does much clothing from this early period still exist? In her New Yorker profile of Kawakubo, writer Judith Thurman is best able to describe these pieces as possibly featuring “denim apron skirts.”

AKIKO FUKAI: For Kawakubo, the Seventies were, I could say, her training or trial period. She was well known among professionals, such as stylists, fashion journalists and buyers, who considered her a very talented new type of designer. In fact, we have just a few items of clothing from her earlier period. They are as Thurman described, and based mainly on “basic” daily clothes, such as Japanese traditional farmer’s clothes made of “Aizome” (Japanese indigo dye textiles or denim) and men’s tailored suits. They are baggy without holes and tiers – yet a flair for a new era can be discerned in her clothing.

KARI RITTENBACH: What was women’s sportswear or streetwear like in the 1960s before Kawakubo?

AKIKO FUKAI: So-called American sportswear had already been translated into Japanese women’s wardrobes in the 1960s. The Japanese apparel industry had developed enormously by learning the American ready–to-wear fashions around that time.

KARI RITTENBACH: Was it more difficult for Kawakubo to control the presentation of her apparel as a young designer? (Which might necessarily have encouraged her to show in Paris?)

AKIKO FUKAI: No, it was not. After having established her own company in 1969, she presented her first show in Tokyo in 1975 and opened her boutique at the same year. (I remember very well her first boutique. It was located on the second floor of a building in Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo and was discreet without a too nice welcoming-feeling but filled with a stimulating atmosphere.) Anyway, she debuted in Paris. It was unavoidable for her to present her works in Paris, the only place where her works might be judged properly, whether positively or negatively.

KARI RITTENBACH: Kawakubo is a virtuoso of contradiction. The title of her women’s line is French for “like boys,” yet for all of her androgynous apparel, she has been careful to resist being labeled a feminist. Kawakubo also established herself squarely in an industry dominated by men. How were her early accomplishments viewed in Japan, and has it had any affect on gender politics in fashion there since?

AKIKO FUKAI: In Japan before her, there were already several female fashion designers who had met with success in the business. For example, Hanae Mori was received as a member of Paris Haute Couture in 1978. The naming of her brand CdG is not related to feminism but more to the attitude that Kawkubo does not compromise on conventionality. She said, ”I try to create clothes by breaking away from the clothes (or thinking) that already exist” (“Deconstruction and Elegance,” interview by Akiko Fukai, Dresstudy, Vol, 24, [Fall 1993]). Therefore her accomplishment had little affect on gender politics in fashion. In any case, Japanese feminists didn’t pay so much attention to fashion.

KARI RITTENBACH: Do you consider Kawakubo’s quasi-feminism, then, to be reflected in her designs for women, which drape and abstract the female body rather than reveal or sensualize it? Or is the “style” of Comme des Garçons apparel simply more culturally amenable to the domestic consumer? In other words, is her treatment of the body considered radical in Japan?

AKIKO FUKAI: As I mentioned before, she is not a feminist. Therefore I think it would be incorrect if we read her designs in the context of feminism. Her design reflects the indigenous notion of Japanese clothing (the kimono, for example) that it is not necessary to obey the body’s form, in contrast to the Western notion that clothes should obey the body’s form; in other words, clothing has the autonomy. In the Japanese tradition, clothing tended to conceal the body line rather than reveal it. Therefore Kawakubo’s treatment of the body did not shock Japanese people. But what shocked them was her fervent and strong expression, through the dynamic volume of form, intricateness of construction and devotion to black in her clothing.

KARI RITTENBACH: What is most appealing about Comme des Garçons to the domestic consumer? Kawaii (Kawaii contains a feeling akin to Japanese version of femininity). At the same time, the label’s very edgy and artistic quality.

AKIKO FUKAI: In a 1983 interview with Women’s Wear Daily, Kawakubo insisted: “I’m not very happy to be classified as another Japanese designer. There is no one characteristic that all Japanese designers have.” How do you respond to this statement, today? I agree with what she said. She can be classified by her own characteristics but not as particularly Japanese. However I am sure that any creators – whether designers or artists – can’t escape from the influence of Zeitgeist on their works; the circumstances, the time, and of course the culture.

KARI RITTENBACH: What do you consider Kawakubo’s relationship to history? Would it be wrong to question the veracity of her claiming a starting point of conceptual “absolute zero”? That later Comme des Garçons collections have riffed on countless historical references (Magritte’s The Red Model of 1935 or designs by Elsa Schiaparelli, for example) certainly indicates that fashion and art history – and not only contemporary culture, high or low – maintain a certain significance for her.

AKIKO FUKAI: In fact in 1993, Kawakubo curated a small fashion exhibition entitled “Essence of Quality” by mixing KCI’s historical costumes with her works in Tokyo. As she said, “I can’t create without being inspired by nothing.” She knows about art history and fashion history. But in her work, the relationship to the history is ambiguous; it is not simply revisiting the past. She catches elements of inspiration with her sensitive antennae and absorbs them. Then she restores them to the level of “zero”, where her own creation starts.

KARI RITTENBACH: Western journalists have used adjectives like “esoteric,” “severe,” “tricky,” “fervent” and “innovative” to describe Kawakubo’s influence on the world of fashion via Comme des Garçons. How have you generally described her aesthetic?

AKIKO FUKAI: Stimulating, dynamic, strong, intricate, and new-feminine. The femininity of the new era has been created by Comme des Garçons following after Coco Chanel. New-femininity looks sometimes androgynous; it is not determined by men’s eyes.