Met retrospective would put Rei Kawakubo on par with Yves Saint Laurent
It’s still a rumour, but if New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art devotes an exhibition to the secretive designer behind cult Japanese label Comme des Garçons it would be fully deserved
If you don’t know the name Rei Kawakubo, then you can’t call yourself a true fashion fan. The elusive Japanese founder and designer of the cult Comme des Garçons brand specialises in clothing as art and fantastical body sculpture.
Rumour has it that Kawakubo and her brand will be the subject of a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition in spring 2017; although there has been no official announcement, there have been enough hints. If so, it will be historic: she’ll be the first living woman fashion designer to have a retrospective exhibition at the Met. Only one other living designer has been afforded the honour – Yves Saint Laurent in 1983.
This year’s Met fashion exhibition is titled “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology”, and follows on from the hugely successful “China: Through the Looking Glass” and “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”. The exhibitions are funded in part through the celebrity-studded annual Met gala.
Kawakubo, 73, is worthy of the retrospective not just because of her unique talent but because she is one of the most publicity-shy designers of our age (she declines most interviews and rarely comes out to take a bow), making her a constant source of fascination. It’s refreshing in the age of the designer-turned-celebrity that someone just wants the clothes to speak for themselves.
Her designs puzzle and confuse most people – they’re hardly wearable and very weird. But Comme des Garçons is all about ideas – about deconstructing and subverting fashion’s conventions. She toys with stereotypes, sexuality and shapes – with an approach to fashion that has been called gender-neutral.