In the world of fashion, few names evoke as much awe and intellectual curiosity as Rei Kawakubo. The founder of the Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçons, Kawakubo has redefined the boundaries of what fashion can be. To some, her designs are abstract sculptures. To others, they are bold challenges to cultural norms. But regardless of how one interprets her work, it is clear that Rei Kawakubo sits at the intersection of art and fashion, constructing garments that question, provoke, and inspire.
This essay explores how Kawakubo’s philosophy, design approach, and legacy make her one of the most important figures in modern fashion. We will look at how her work merges art with fashion—not in a metaphorical or aesthetic sense, but in a way that forces both industries to confront each other, often uncomfortably. In doing so, we reveal how her creations go beyond clothing to become statements, experiments, and even acts of rebellion.
A Designer Without Labels
Rei Kawakubo never trained formally as a fashion designer. In fact, she studied fine arts and literature at Keio University in Tokyo. This foundation outside of traditional fashion education is crucial to understanding her unique lens. While many designers approach their collections with commercial goals or trends in mind, Kawakubo approaches hers with questions: What is beauty? What is the body? What is clothing?
When she founded Comme des Garçons in 1969, she wasn’t interested in merely dressing people. Instead, she wanted to confront fashion as a cultural institution. Her early collections, especially the ones that debuted in Paris in the early 1980s, caused both outrage and admiration. Models wore black, asymmetrical garments with frayed edges, holes, and irregular silhouettes—at a time when glamour and structure ruled the fashion world. Critics called it “Hiroshima chic,” a label that Kawakubo never embraced, but one that reflected how disruptive her work was to the Western fashion sensibility.
These early shows marked a pivotal moment. Fashion was no longer just about the elegance of a Dior silhouette or the clean lines of Chanel. It had become a form of expression capable of critique and subversion.
The Aesthetic of Imperfection
One of Kawakubo’s most influential concepts is her embrace of imperfection. Where most designers strive for symmetry, polish, and technical finesse, Kawakubo deliberately avoids them. She prefers deconstruction, asymmetry, and volume—elements that traditionally contradict the idea of “flattering” fashion. Her work often features clothing that does not hug the body but distorts or obscures it.
Take her 1997 collection “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body,” often nicknamed the “lumps and bumps” collection. The garments had padding sewn into odd places: shoulders, hips, backs, and stomachs. They altered the natural shape of the body in ways that were both grotesque and compelling. These pieces challenged viewers to question their assumptions about beauty, body norms, and functionality.
What’s remarkable is that these radical ideas never came off as gimmicky. Kawakubo wasn’t simply experimenting for shock value—each piece asked viewers to reconsider their relationship to their own bodies and the expectations society places on them. In this way, her work parallels the intent of modern artists: to destabilize comfort, provoke dialogue, and reflect contemporary anxieties.
Fashion as Sculpture
Many critics and curators have noted that Kawakubo’s work resembles sculpture more than fashion. This comparison is not accidental. Her garments frequently inhabit the space between the body and the fabric, playing with volume and form in ways that reference installation art and abstract sculpture. Fabric is not just used to clothe the body—it becomes a raw material used to explore space, structure, and movement.
Her designs often have no clear front or back, no traditional seams, and sometimes not even sleeves or openings in the expected places. These disruptions force the wearer—and the observer—to engage with the clothing intellectually. You don’t just wear a Kawakubo piece; you interact with it, analyze it, and even question its purpose.
This philosophy was brought to a global audience in 2017, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute presented the exhibition “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between.” It was only the second time in the Met’s history that a living designer had been given a solo exhibition, the first being Yves Saint Laurent in 1983. The title of the exhibition—Art of the In-Between—perfectly encapsulated Kawakubo’s entire oeuvre. Her work lives in the tension between art and commerce, between fashion and sculpture, between body and garment.
A Brand That Resists Branding
In an era where fashion brands are obsessively curated, packaged, and promoted, Comme des Garçons remains curiously elusive. Kawakubo rarely gives interviews. She avoids public appearances. Her shows are cryptic, often released without explanations or accompanying press materials. This mystique isn’t accidental—it’s part of her resistance to fashion’s increasing commodification.
And yet, Comme des Garçons has become a powerful global brand. Its streetwear diffusion line, Comme des Garçons PLAY, featuring the now-iconic heart-with-eyes logo by artist Filip Pagowski, is worn by celebrities and fashion enthusiasts around the world. Kawakubo also launched Dover Street Market, a multi-brand retail concept that functions more like a curated gallery than a traditional store. Through these projects, she has shown that it is possible to build a successful business without compromising artistic integrity.
This duality—high art and streetwear, mystery and marketability—is at the core of Kawakubo’s success. It proves that fashion doesn’t have to follow a binary path of either being commercially viable or intellectually rigorous. Under her vision, it can be both.
Feminism Without the Label
Although Kawakubo rarely describes her work in explicitly feminist terms, many see her as a pioneering figure in feminist fashion. Her refusal to cater to traditional ideals of femininity—especially the male gaze—makes her work inherently political. Her clothes often reject form-fitting silhouettes and sexualization. Instead, they offer armor, protection, even anonymity.
Her models frequently walk the runway in minimal makeup, stark lighting, and with serious expressions. There is no performative glamour or effort to appeal to conventional standards of beauty. This refusal to conform is a quiet revolution in an industry often driven by superficial ideals.
In many ways, Kawakubo has created space for female designers and wearers to exist outside of patriarchal norms. She has proven that women don’t have to be “pretty” to be powerful, and that fashion can be a tool for liberation rather than constraint.
Legacy and Influence
Rei Kawakubo’s influence extends far beyond her own collections. Her philosophy has shaped an entire generation of designers—from Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake to Rick Owens and even conceptual newcomers like Craig Green and Iris van Herpen. Each of these designers explores fashion as more than commercial product, treating it as a vehicle for emotion, architecture, and experimentation.
More importantly, Kawakubo has expanded the vocabulary of fashion. She has shown that clothing can express fear, confusion, strength, or tenderness. It can critique consumerism, mourn loss, or celebrate imperfection. Under her influence, fashion becomes not just a mirror of society but a tool to question it.
