(Photo:formal dresses uk)When it was announced that the subject of the 2017 Costume Institute exhibition would be the reclusive designer Rei Kawakubo and her label Comme des Garçons, fashion enthusiasts the world over took a collective gasp of disbelief. Was it true that a taciturn designer with an aesthetic best described as anything but mainstream would be the object of one of the biggest fashion exhibitions in the world?
Indeed, it was.
On May 4, Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, opens to the public at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after serving as the backdrop for last night’s Met Gala. It is the second exhibition of a living designer in the Costume Institute’s 70-year history, the last being of Yves Saint Laurent.
“It was a collaboration from the beginning, and it was not always easy. What we have arrived at was something we both feel proud of,” says Head Curator of the Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton.
As a designer who’s stayed out of the spotlight—she’s done only a handful of interviews in 50 years—Kawakubo makes very clear she does not care to talk about her work, let alone interpret it. Therefore, working with Bolton toward his own interpretation was a predictable challenge. “It’s a Met show for Comme des Garçons, not a Comme des Garçons show at the Met,” she said in a recent interview.
“The way she reconciled the idea of me interpreting her work was to give free reign to my curatorial interpretation and the objects I chose, and that would allow her to step back and not engage with that side of it,” says Bolton.
Which hardly meant their work together was free of disagreements. “I fought, and I lost some battles, and won others. Every now and again, there was a collection she just didn’t want to include in the exhibition, and with every artist, you have to respect that,” Bolton adds.
Kawakubo’s influence over the exhibition at the Met involved her delving deeply into the architecture of the space, which, in its stark whiteness and maze-like design formed of small, cylindrical and rectangular chambers, is completely unlike anything the Costume Institute has done in recent years, if ever.
Art of the In-Between drops the viewer into a completely escapist and immersive experience outside of the moody, cavernous and, sometimes, labyrinthine shows for which The Costume Institute is known, putting aside some of the more typical cues of the institution’s curatorial habits.
Upon walking through a narrow entryway lit simply with the name of the show, viewers emerge into the vaulted white space, lit brightly with shining, fluorescent lights above. Clothing is displayed from all vantage points—encased in glass at the ceiling, peeking through openings, or in full view on a platform at eye level. It is, indeed, awesome in every sense of the word.
The design of the exhibition feels as abstract as the indecipherable qualities of Kawakubo’s work. Clothes are hidden between cracks and crevices or set back away from the viewer, inviting you to discover them, like a game of hide-and-seek.
The architecture of the show is a manifestation of this idea of “in-between,” which merges the premises of Zen koan Mu (emptiness), and Ma (space)—concepts that are the foundational ideas of Kawakubo’s designs.
Made up of circular structures (a symbol in Zen Buddhism which represents the void, or in this case, the Mu) spattered with a few rectangular structures and other geometric forms, these shapes act as containers for the clothes, all with the intention of eliciting the feeling of both absence and presence.
“If you divorce Rei’s work from the context they are displayed in, they lose their resonance. So there was a lot of negotiation about the space and display,” says Bolton. “To get that balance to where the clothes and architecture both spoke to each and expressed themselves in a very balanced way was the biggest challenge.”
As a result, the exhibition design feels authentic to Kawakubo and who she is a designer.
She did not study fashion design. Instead, she creates in a way that is often experimental. Her work is fantastical, asymmetrical and otherworldly, challenging the notions of the body and beauty. She’s been known to crumple up pieces of paper and create garments based on that form and shape.
Her first runway show was in Paris in 1981. Although she had been designing for two decades prior, when she presented her work, people sat up and took notice. All of a sudden, there was a designer on the scene who, instead of the glam, shoulder-pad laden looks of the 80’s à la Versace and Armani, showed a deconstructed collection that was the antithesis of body conscious.
She joined a tiny, but growing movement of designers like Martin Margiela and Dries van Noten, who were turning fashion on its head with antiestablishment collections, except that she was a woman and she was Japanese.
With the support of her husband and CEO, Adrian Joffe, whom she’s been married to for 25 years, Comme des Garçons has become an organization with sales in the hundreds of millions. No small feat for a brand that is hardly mainstream.
More mass-market luxury fashion companies are used to a business model based on secondary lines, accessories and beauty products, so consumers buy into the brand at a price point that is much more accessible than the actual clothes. This makes up the bulk of most sales at any successful fashion brand. But only a handful of niche brands have been able to mimic this model successfully. Of course, Comme des Garçons is one of them.
“You can split Comme des Garçons into two sides, there is the runway stuff that is extremely difficult, and then there is CDG Play, perfumes, and a multitude of secondary lines and collaborations. Plus the Dover Street Market mini-department stores. I think the latter really allows Kawakubo to produces the former.” says Eugene Rabkin, Founder and Editor of StyleZeitgeist magazine. “I would wager that of the $280 million that the CDG universe brings in revenue, not much of it comes from the runway clothes.”
While the exhibition successfully creates a tangible manifestation of the empire, ideology and aesthetic that is Comme des Garçons, as a viewer, it missed on some of the finer points.
For example, it is at times difficult to get close enough to appreciate the complicated structure and detail of Kawakubo’s designs. The clothes in the displays that are placed near to the ceiling cannot be examined at all, while the pieces in the section titled Child/Adult are so far back in their cubby-like space that it is hard to fully engage with them.
Also, most of the clothes on display are from the 2000’s, with only a handful of pieces from the 80’s and 90’s, and nothing from before. “I would have loved to see the clothes from the pre-Internet era, as opposed to those I am well-familiar with and have seen in stores,” says Rabkin.
Katharine Zarrella, Founder and Editor of Fashion Unfiltered, is a journalist and collector of Kawakubo’s designs. “I thought the setup was brilliant—very CDG in the way it made no suggestions. Instead, it invites the viewer to come inside and experience the garments for herself,” she says. “I do wish there had been more of Kawakubo’s early work in the collection, but I feel as though this show exemplified what a fantastical world CDG has become, and perhaps the early work didn’t fit into that narrative.”
Nevertheless, the exhibition represents tremendous risks taken for all parties involved, and to great success.
Art of the In Between is exactly the sort of transporting experience that a fashion exhibition should be while bringing to the forefront the work of a designer who deserves to be thrust into the spotlight—no matter how much she may not believe so herself.Read more at:evening dresses
