Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons

A revelatory look at the influential and enigmatic designer behind Comme des Garçons
The great pantheon of fashion designers produces only a handful of creators who are masters of their métier. Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons is one of them. Widely recognized among her contemporaries as the most important and influential designer of the past forty years, she has, since her Paris debut in 1981, defined and transformed the aesthetics of our time. This lavishly illustrated publication examines Kawakubo’s fascination with interstitiality, or the space between boundaries. Existing within and between dualities—whether self/other, object/subject, art/fashion—Kawakubo’s work challenges the rigid divisions that have come to define received notions of identity and fashionability, inviting us to rethink fashion as a site of constant creation, re-creation, and, ultimately, hybridity. Featuring brilliant new photography, and thought-provoking texts by Andrew Bolton, this book expresses the conceptual and challenging aesthetic of this visionary designer. An insightful interview and illustrated chronology of Kawakubo’s career provide additional context.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(05/04/17–09/04/17)

“"The catalog is a collector's piece . . . the 240-page book is minimal, arresting, and impossibly chic."-- Elle”

"[A] substantial survey. . . . Kawakubo calls her clothes 'objects for the body,' and this catalog allows those objects to speak to readers who understand that fashion goes beyond what you’re wearing to work tomorrow."—Library Journal

"Her more than 40-year rule as the doyenne of avant-garde fashion is documented here in stunning style."—Glass Magazine

“A luxurious tome destined for fashion-conscious coffee tables the world over.”—Imogen Greenhalgh, Crafts Magazine

“Andrew Bolton provides, in his lavishly illustrated catalogue, scholarly, thought-provoking texts which help to illuminate a pathway to this visionary fashion designer.”—Alice Mackrell, Journal of Dress History

"an important [text], setting a new standard for how to interrogate the work of contemporary fashion designers." — Georgina Ripley, Costume

Andrew Bolton is curator in charge of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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