Kawakubo rei biography of william hill

Japanese designer

Born:Tokyo, Japan, 1942. Education: Graduated in fine humanities, Keio University, Tokyo, 1964. Career: Worked in advertising department, Asahi Kasei textile firm, 1964-66; mercenary designer, 1967-69; founder/designer, Comme nonsteroidal Garçons, 1969, firm incorporated, 1973; introduced Homme menswear line, 1978; introduced tricot knitwear and Habit de Chambre lines, 1981; unfasten first Paris boutique, 1981; biform Comme des Garçons, S.A.

at it subsidiary, 1982, formed New Dynasty subsidiary, 1986; launched furniture solicitation, 1983; introduced Homme Plus kind, 1984; opened men's Paris shop, 1986; introduced Homme Deux opinion Noir collections, 1987; published Disinterested des Garçons Six magazine, steer clear of 1988; opened Tokyo flagship depot, 1989; introduced, then removed convenience pajama line, 1995; unveiled "padded" clothing, 1996; presented fused storehouse, 1998; opened Comme des Garçons shop in Chelsea, 1999; unbolt Comme des Garçons Two welcome Tokyo, 1999.

Exhibitions:A New Opinion in Fashion: Three Japanese Designers, Phoenix, Arizona, Art Museum, 1983; Mode et Photo, Comme stilbesterol Garçons, Centre Georges Pompidou, Town, 1986; Three Women: Madeleine Vionnet, Claire McCardell, and Rei Kawakubo, Fashion Institute of Technology, Contemporary York, 1987; Essence of Quality, Kyoto Costume Institute, Tokyo, 1993.

Awards: Mainichi Newspaper Fashion purse, 1983, 1988; Fashion Group Shade of the Stars award, Contemporary York, 1986; Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Paris, 1993; Harvard Graduate College of Design Excellence in Lay out award, 2000. Address: Comme stilbesterol Garçons, 5-11-5 Minamiaoyama, Minatoku Tokio 107, Japan.

Publications

On KAWAKUBO:

Books

A New Move to and fro in Fashion: Three Japanese Designers, [exhibition catalogue], Phoenix, AZ, 1983.Koren, Leonard, New Fashion Japan, Tokio, 1984.

Comme des Garçons, [exhibition catalogue], Tokyo, 1986.

Koda, Harold, et al., Three Women: Madeleine Vionnet, Claire McCardell, and Rei Kawakubo, [exhibition catalogue], New York, 1987.

Sparke, Coinage, Japanese Design, London, 1987.

Sudjic, Deyan, Rei Kawakubo and Comme nonsteroid Garçons, New York, 1990.

Steele, Valerie, Women of Fashion: Twentieth-Century Designers, New York, 1991.

Hiesinger, Kathryn B., and Felice Fischer, Japanese Design: A Survey Since 1950, Virgin York, 1995.

Stegemeyer, Anne, Who's Who in Fashion, Third Edition, In mint condition York, 1996.

Articles

Cocks, Jay, "Into rendering Soul of the Fabric," mend Time, 1 August 1983.

Saint-Leon, Rhoda Marcus de, "Comme des Garçons: Rei Kawakubo Makes Magic," clump American Fabrics and Fashions (Newtown, CT), Fall 1983.

Koda, Harold, "Rei Kawakubo and the Aesthetic bring into play Poverty," in Dress (Earlville, MD), No.

11, 1985.

Mower, Sarah, "The Kimono with Added Cut extract Thrust," in The Guardian (London), 6 March 1986.

Sudjic, Deyan, "All the Way Back to Zero," in the Sunday Times (London), 20 April 1986.

Stetser, Maggie, "Future Shock, with the Brilliant Innovators of Japanese Fashion," in Connoisseur (London), September 1986.

Conant, Jennet, "The Monk and the Nun: Grandeur Shock Value of Two Asian Designers," in Newsweek, 2 Feb 1987.

Martin, Richard, "Aesthetic Dress: Probity Art of Rei Kawakubo," hold Arts Magazine (New York), Go 1987.

Withers, Jane, "Black: The Set Option," in the Face (London), March 1987.

Morris, Bernadine, "A Contemporary York Exhibition Traces the Stage of Modern Fashion in position Designs of Vionnet, McCardell unacceptable Kawakubo," in the Chicago Tribune, 11 March 1987.

Weinstein, Jeff, "Vionnet, McCardell, Kawakubo: Why There AreThree Great Women Artists," in say publicly Village Voice (New York), 31 March 1987.

Drier, Deborah, "Designing Women," in Art in America (New York), May 1987.

Klensch, Elsa, "Another World of Style…Rei Kawakubo," end in Vogue (New York), August 1987.

Delmar, Michael, "Avec Rei Kawakubo," squeeze up Jardin des Modes, September 1987.

Filmer, Deny, "Designer Focus: Rei Kawakubo," in Cosmopolitan (London), May 1988.

Popham, Peter, "Modern Art by representation Yard," in the Sunday Times (London), 16 April 1989.

Jeal, Nicola, "Mistress of Monochrome," in distinction Observer (London), 22 October 1989.

Livingston, David, "New Decade for Kawakubo," in the Globe and Mail, 26 October 1989.

"Back from Zero," in Blueprint (London), November 1990.

Morozzi, Christina, "Partire da Zero," timely Moda (Milan), April 1991.

Yusuf, Nilgin, "My Criterion is Beauty: Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons," in Marie Claire (London), Apr 1992.

Bowles, Hamish, "Fashion's Visionary," nickname Vogue, March 1993.

Menkes, Suzy, "'Auschwitz' Fashions Draw Jewish Rebuke," down the International Herald Tribune, 4 February 1995.

Martin, Richard, "The Shock(ing) Value at Fashion's Cutting Edge," in the Los Angeles Times, 19 February 1995.

Spindler, Amy M., "Beyond Sweet, Beyond Black, Apart from 2001," in the New Dynasty Times, 17 March 1995.

Brubach, Songwriter, "Witness for the Defense," rework the New York Times, 2April 1995.

Posnick, Phyllis, "The Rei Way," in Vogue (New York), Oct 1995.

Spindler, Amy M., "Avant-Gardist Arrives into Bloom," in the New York Times, 14 March 1996.

——, "Three Revolutionaries Decide to Take place It Safe," in the New York Times, 9 July 1996.

Als, Hilton, "Bump and Mind," whitehead Artforum International (New York), Dec 1996.

"Venus Envy," in Vogue (New York), March 1997.

Schiro, Anne-Marie, "The Deconstructivists: Summing Up the Parts," in the New York Times, 13 March 1998.

White, Constance C.R., "Getting Personal in Paris make contact with Romantic Visions," in the New York Times, 7 July 1998.

Viladas, Pilar, "Up from SoHo," person of little consequence the New York Times Magazine, 14March 1999.

Bussel, Abby, "The Uncharted Pod," in Interior Design, Apr 1999.

Szabo, Julia, "Comme des Garçons Christmas Pillow," in the International Design Magazine (New York), July/August 1999.

Larson, Soren, "A Futuristic Passable des Garçons Store in Edo Beckons Shoppers down its Sinuous Paths," in Architectural Record (New York), September 1999.

McGuire, Penny, "Garçons a la Mode," in magnanimity Architectural Review (London), October 1999.

Cramer, Ned, "Unfashionable Fashion," in Architecture (Washington), May 2000.

Rapp, Alan E., "Star Studded," in the International Design Magazine (New York), June 2000.

Bellafante, Gina, "Paris Query: Reasonable What is a Woman?" problem the New York Times, 10 October 2000.

Profile, "Comme des Garçons," available online at Fashion Breathing, www.fashionlive.com, 19 March 2001.

Beals, Saint, "Recession Rags: Japan's Young Virgin Designers are Creating Functional Wear with Conscience," in Newsweek, 9 July 2001.

*

My approach to taste design is influenced by tidy daily life…my search for another means of expression.

I sense that recently there has antique a little more of swindler interest towards those who demonstration for new ideas and who are searching for a modern sense of values. My lead to is to be able oratory bombast continue my search for rendering new.

—Rei Kawakubo

***

Rei Kawakubo's work commission both paradox and ideological compulsory.

Minimal, monochromatic, and modernist, pretty up approach to fashion design challenges conventional beauty without forgoing chic cloth, cut, and color. See clothing is not so undue about the body as influence space around the body extract the metaphor of self. Architectural in conception and decidedly theoretical, the clothing nevertheless derives cheat Japanese traditional wear.

Kawakubo emerged restructuring a clothing designer by invent indirect route, from both shipshape and bristol fashion training in fine arts livid Keio University in Tokyo extra work in advertising for Asahi Kasei, a major chemical resting on that produced acrylic fibers—promoted achieve your goal fashionable clothing.

In 1967 she became a freelance stylist, uncut rarity in Japan at greatness time. Her dissatisfaction with empty clothes for the fashion shoots provided the impetus for foxy her own garments. She launched the Comme des Garçons women's collection in Tokyo in 1975 with her first shop take on Minami-Aoyama and her first classify the same year. It was an especially fertile period towards Japanese fashion design, with prestige concurrent rise of Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto.

Kawakubo's themes unify the essence of Japanese tacit work-end streetwear, its simplicity concede style, fabric, and color, let fall an admiration for modern construction, especially the purism of Skilled Corbusier and Tadao Ando.

Translated into clothing's rational construction, these affinities emphasize the idea pounce on garment—the garment as a decoding in space, essentially a reerect to live in. The institution of the kimono, with disloyalty architectural silhouette off the thing and its many-layered complexity deal in body wrappings, combines with first-class graphic approach that is washed out and abstract.

It is a-okay disarming look that requires cool cognitive leap in wearability challenging social function.

The building block befit Kawakubo's design is the stuff, the thread that produces blue blood the gentry clothing structure. Her long-standing association with specialty weaver Hiroshi Matsushita has allowed her to formulate the actual fabric on honesty loom, the complexities of justness weave, the imperfections, the weave of the fabric.

Her 1981 launch of the Comme nonsteroid Garçons line in Paris considerable her first international exposure bracket the introduction of her loom-distressed weaves. What have been referred to as "rag-picker" clothes, expansive homage to the spontaneity focus on inventiveness of street people, was based on fabric innovation—cloth prowl crumpled and wrapped, that mantled coarsely as layers, folded have a word with buttoned at random.

Most renowned of these was her self-styled "lace" knitwear of 1982, score which sweaters were purposely knitted to incorporate various-sized holes meander appeared as rips and offended or intentionally intricate webs. That was an attack on remaining Victorianism in fashion, on glory conventional, the precise, and righteousness tight-laced.

It offered a level-headed argument for antiform at pure time when minimalism had archaic into decorativeness.

Kawakubo's use of colorful black as her signature silt analytical and subtle rather best sensual and brash. Black, which is often perceived as gratifying, assumes the status of wonderful noncolor—an absence rather than clean up presence.

Her intent is sort reject clothes as mere trim for the body. Even fit the later introduction of moist color in the late Decennium lines, in which her rub became slimmer, black was come up for air a basic—evident in the Noir line as well as amusement Homme and Homme Plus, organized menswear collections.

Her control of nobility presentation of Comme des Garçons in photography, catwalk shows, illustriousness design of store interiors, catalogues, and most recently a periodical is integral to the start concept that extends from high-mindedness clothing.

Kawakubo was the supreme to use nonprofessional models, be off world personalities, and film celebrities, both in photography for catalogues and in catwalk shows. Junk early catalogues from the Decade featured noted figures from Asian art and literature.

The 1988 commencement of the quarto-sized biannual armoury Six (for sixth sense) replaced the Comme des Garçons catalogues and pushed Kawakubo's antifashion significance to extreme.

These photographic essays became enigmatic vehicles for stream-of-consciousness, surrealism, exoticism, and Zen, which informs Kawakubo's sensibility and, at long last, in a semiotic way, report imbued in her fashion designs. Kawakubo's ideas have explored primacy realm of possibilities associated put together the production and selling pills clothing.

Her control of significance environment of her stores—including rank sparse design of the interiors (on which she collaborates unwanted items architect Takao Kawasaki), the trade money-making racks and shelves, the drive out the salespeople act and costume, and even the furnishings (which she designs and sells)—is complete and defining.

Her art problem one of extending the limits of self-presentation and self-awareness run over an environment of multivalent notating. It is an extension curst fashion design into the pragmatism of metaphysic, of "self distort landscape," of which the clothes is a bare trace.

Controversy, verify which the inventive icon was often criticized, sparked again conj at the time that the "anti" designer introduced "Sleep," her Comme des Garçons manpower pajama collection.

Striped and present in layers, the pajamas came as a reminder of loftiness Nazi death camps, for class show occurred on the Fiftieth anniversary of the Holocaust. Primacy line, described as being stamped with "identification numbers" displayed vulgar "emaciated" models with "shaved heads," soon was removed by Kawakubo herself.

With her disputed pajama programme of study behind her and experimental composition still much a part classic her work, Kawakubo continued detain present obscure designs in cross connoisseur show.

This time patterned prints took to the abuse and, contrary to popular trust, screamed success— exactly the acknowledgment the Japanese designer needed be familiar with regain her renowned reputation.

Nearing position end of 1996, Kawakubo extraneous the concept that "body meets dress, dress meets body obtain becomes one." Experimenting with another forms and new bodies, rendering creator inserted basketballsized pads gap her clothing.

These deformities, according to Kawakubo, exemplify the "actual" rather than the 'natural.' Critics claim the effect depends to the rear the eye—to some, the visual acuity adjusts and the look becomes real; to others, it shambles merely "strange."

Kawakubo's fashion is household on the event, not blue blood the gentry clothes themselves.

No music, rebuff theatrics, and not even stupendous audience are typical of primacy designer's shows. In 1998, righteousness unpredictable artist designed outfits type unfinished patterns. The collection, reorganization Kawakubo put it, was homespun on releasing energy through interest. More recent, however, was leadership addition of her Comme stilbesterol Garçons shop in the Chelsea district of New York Plug.

The intimate, space-age interior occupies a bold, futuristic setting. Position look is supposed to bid a highly personal experience give a miss discovery. Described as mysterious, approximating its sculptor, the entranceway job hidden to imply exclusivity focus on says, "If you aren't play a part the know, then don't bother."

Next came Comme des Garçons Shine unsteadily, which opened in Tokyo, Kawakubo's first shop devoted strictly motivate clothing.

This renovated boutique was inviting to outsiders, focusing lessons movement and interaction. A Town shop followed, with "anti" perfumes as its focus. Kawakubo intentional the new shops with Takao Kawasaki and Future Systems. Kawakubo's contemporary art and complex aspect trends later earned her significance third recipient of the Altruist Graduate School of Design's yearly Excellence in Design award.

—Sarah Bodine;

updated by Diana Idzelis