ELLE on Earth. Rei Kawakubo of COMME des GARCONS (Photo: flickr.com/photos/ronniebube The press used to subsist on leaks; it now thrives on plants.
The politician is not a liar or a demagogue but a product. It was therefore revealed a month ago that the hacks Marc Ambinder and Mike Allen of respectively the boring Atlantic and vapid Politico sold their souls to Hillary Clinton’s staff in order to get access: first reads were promised, quote approval, word veto, talking point insertion, narrative change and forced rewrite. Time Warner, Conde Nast and Hearst don’t hire editors in chief anymore but editors able to understand the value of the marketing division to the newsroom and how they should be merged, which is code for content branding. A strong case in point is ELLE magazine. 7 Fashion Trends COMME des GARÇONS Did First. Since their first harmonious union back in 2012, Supreme x COMME des GARÇONS has spawned a slew of iconic hits, and many drops have guest starred additional Supreme partners like Timberland and Vans.
Before you battle it out to cop the drop, take a few minutes out to appreciate the sensational sorcery of iconoclast Rei Kawkaubo, founder of COMME des GARÇONS and Dover Street Market. This is a designer who has single-handedly rewritten the madness of fashion. To call Kawakubo a revolutionary would be a gross understatement. The Japanese avant-gardist has crafted an entire universe that offers “comfort to the wearer and discomfort to the beholder.”
ELLE on Earth. Rei Kawakubo - purple MAGAZINE. Purple sequin dress and long gloves COMME DES GARÇONS an empire of intuitionComme Des Garçons F/W 2012-13 women’s collection photographed by PAOLO ROVERSI style by SHEILA SINGLE interview by OLIVIER ZAHM.
Rei Kawakubo - A Sense of Place. He was referring to the Comme store planted in SoHo in 1983, when that area was all art galleries and grungy lofts.
The store migrated in 1999 to Chelsea, where the windowless shop, hidden behind the graffiti-sprawled walls of a former industrial factory, has become a shopping destination. As well as being exceptionally and courageously creative as a designer, Ms. Kawakubo has a certain commercial magic touch that comes from a sense of place. That is why the fashion cognoscenti are evaluating the effect of the “White Drama” show (until Oct. 7) in the new Les Docks area of Paris. The all-white Comme collection, tracing the emotional moments in a woman’s life, offers the richly embellished outfits inside clear plastic bubbles.
Log In. Watanabe is 55; his company is 24.
The day we met, he wore a black Lacoste polo shirt, shorts and horn-rimmed glasses that gave a decided intellectual slant to his appearance. “Intellectual” is an adjective often used to describe Watanabe’s clothes, usually by journalists. What they mean is that his clothes are complex, complicated to make, sometimes complicated to wear, intriguing and experimental.
He often uses one fabric for a collection, his approach almost scientific in the dissection and cataloging of the material’s various forms. The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry. Rei Kawakubo is the creative director of Comme des Garçons, which she has grown into a business turning over $220 million a year.
She never trained to be a fashion designer; instead she studied art and literature at Keio University. Perhaps as a result of this, Kawakubo has always followed the beat of her own drum, both commercially and creatively. Dubbed “anti-fashion” and “Hiroshima Chic” by easily shocked and insensitive journalists, Kawakubo’s first show made ripples across the fashion industry. The Japanese designer entered the industry when she took a job at a textiles factory; in 1967 the designer became freelance stylist. Two years later she began making clothes under the label Comme Des Garçons. By the time of her Paris debut in 1981 Kawakubo was so famous that her followers and fans were dubbed ‘the crows’ in the Japanese press.
She continued to innovate and in doing so inspired numerous designers, making fashion a richer palette than before. Comme des Garcons Six Magazine Volumes 1- 8. Likeacat. Tony Newsham – Life at Comme. Every time fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garçons, presented a new collection in Paris, she turned to Tony Newsham with the same word, “Commercial?”
Newsham, who became Vice President of Comme des Garçons, would have never have said “no”. Based in New York for 13 years, it was his job to realise Kawakubo’s vision for the American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand markets. “Rei always designs for herself. That’s what makes her so unique,” adds Newsham, whose career path started in Australia. Tony Newsham – Life at Comme. Tony Newsham – Life at Comme. Rei Kawakubo. Since she launched her Comme des Garçons (French for "like the boys") fashion brand 41 years ago, Rei Kawakubo has always played by her own rules.
Fascinated by challenging conventional standards of beauty, she's reconstructed "hybrid" clothes, sewn the left half of a jacket onto the right half of a different jacket and designed asymmetrical dresses made from her own vintage scarves—and that was all just in her last women's presentation. It's never just about creating something to wear, but rather expressing an idea. The 68-year-old, whose conceptual outlook has inspired everyone from Azzedine Alaïa to John Galliano and who still often clocks 12-hour days, seven days a week, is famous for saying she became a designer "to make a living. " While that may be true, Kawakubo has also immeasurably changed the greater fashion landscape.
All kinds of business models are necessary to suit all kinds of tastes and needs. My work has never been as an artist. —Edited from WSJ.' A Portrait of Rei Kawakubo by Those Who Know Her Best. Ask anyone working in the fashion industry which living designer they most admire, and chances are they will say Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons.
We ask some friends, from Stephen Jones to Nick Knight, Alexander McQueen to Björk, just what is it that makes the elusive designer such an unlikely figurehead for fashion, and print a rare written response from the lady herself. Kawakubo is intentionally oblivious to the preoccupations that might motivate her contemporaries: the rise and fall of skirt lengths is of no consequence, the colour, fabric or reference du jour is not even remotely relevant in her world. "Bump and Mind" by Als, Hilton - Artforum International, Vol. 35, Issue 4, December 1996. Kim Novak's protuberances in Hitchcock's Vertigo, Godzilla pores, pus flowering on top of pimples, nineteenth-century bustles and false fronts, Veronica Cartwright's bug-eyed expression of horror in Ridley Scott's Alien, prosthetic cocks or a "real" erect one, cellulite and diagrams on how to combat it, the male/female character in Silence of the lambs regarding his image in the mirror, dick tucked between his legs - all these tabulae non rasae sprang to mind as I watched models garbed in Rei Kawakubo's Spring/Summer '97 collection walk down the runway this fall, their backs, shoulders, and hips made ecstatically, imagistically associative by the down humps planted in Kawakubo's wool, polyurethane, and organdy gowns.
Kawakubo does not design clothes but events in which people appear. Extreme beauty transformations of AW15. Last season saw fetishistic lacquered masks at Alexander McQueen and all over white body paint for a spectral yet serene look at Rick Owens. We take a look at the artists who went above and beyond for AW15, to create padlocked mouths, pearl-decorated faces and bleeding lips – charting this season’s top ten most extreme transformations.
The famous Mayan-influenced Hollyhock House by Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Rick Owens this season. The structure led the designer to present a collective of golden girls with faces that radiated like the sun – a sacred symbol to the ancient civilisation. Owens’ models looked like other worldly creatures with crumbling, metallic foil faces created by make-up artist Lucia Pieroni. The master of theatrics John Galliano returned with a collection riddled in the uncanny. Tomihiro Kono's 60s headpieces from last season were replaced with all black latern-style structures for AW15. Julien d’ys on Comme des Garçons. Taken from the spring/summer 14 issue of Dazed: A Comme des Garçons show isn’t complete without the hair alchemy of Julien d’ys. Born Pierrick Le Verge, he’s been defying convention for three decades with his off-kilter, theatrical creations for the likes of Chanel, John Galliano and, most famously, Comme des Garçons, where he’s worked with Rei Kawakubo since 1991.
Every season, d’ys elevates Kawakubo’s outsider sensibilities with creations that stem from obscure corners of the imagination, from oiled black wigs inspired by David Lynch’s The Elephant Man to candy-floss creations covered in safety pins. Gang of Four. Peoples' eyes constantly deceive them, and that was certainly true in Paris in the fall of 1996, when Rei Kawakubo, the designer behind Comme des Gar? S, presented a collection of dresses swollen with huge lumps. In profile, the models looked like hunchbacks or camels tipped onto their sides. There were smaller, kidney-shaped masses on shoulders and arms, most covered in cheerful gingham. The clothes confounded critics, even those used to Kawakubo's abstract methods. Amy Spindler wrote in The New York Times that Kawakubo had ''invented whole new deformities for women.'' ''Lumps and Bumps,'' as the collection came to be called, illustrates the difficulties for a designer of being not merely original but also a modernist.
Michelle Elie: The Woman Wearing the Avant-Garde. Back in September 2013, Rei Kawakubo reinvented the traditional approach to runway collections. Presenting her S/S14 offering, comprised of only 23 outfits – each a sculptural exploration of form and fabrication, rather than a traditional ready-to-wear garment – she was entirely dismissing familiar fashion formulas (X amount of looks, Y amount of accessories, etc.) to create one of her own: one that rejected conformity in favour of creativity.
To the industry's delight, she has continued to present these exceptional collections (from which the readier-to-wear pieces draw inspiration), offering a relieving alternative to the consumable frenzy currently infiltrating the industry. Michelle Elie: The Woman Wearing the Avant-Garde. The Anarchic Revolution of Comme des Garçons. "Eighteenth century punk," was the phrase given up by Rei Kawakubo to explain her extraordinary Autumn/Winter 2016 collection for Comme des Garçons last weekend in Paris.
If it seems somewhat contradictory in intention – and it would certainly not be the first time this great creator chose to do that – then first impressions may be misleading. The Japanese Aesthetic in Fashion: Beyond the Kimono, Part II. The Japanese Aesthetic in Fashion:Beyond the Kimono, Part II. Rei Kawakubo, I'm Your Biggest fan: John Waters - PAPERMAG. Kim Hastreiter: I hear that Rei Kawakubo is one of your favorite designers. John Waters: She certainly is. She's beyond a designer. As the old cliche goes, I think she's the best artist in SoHo!
The first thing I ever bought there [the comme des Garcons store on Wooster Street] was a set of four handkerchiefs that I still treasure. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE FASHION INDUSTRY? WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE first part of a long narrative interview conducted by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg for Vestoj’s sixth issue, ‘On Failure’, released this month. Adrian Joffe talks personal style: Part Two - Style.
My style icon is [Myanmar democracy activist] Aung San Suu Kyi. She possesses style in the broader sense of the word – that is, I admire her for her dignity, beauty, hard work and passion for human rights causes. In my fridge you’ll always find very little. I tend to eat lunch out and as I return home late at night, I don’t cook very much. Rei Kawakubo Talks Future of the Fashion Industry and How She Wants to Be Remembered.
Rei Kawakubo. Comme des Garçons Archives. Rei Kawakubo’s radical chic. Rei Kawakubo, I'm Your Biggest fan: John Waters. John Waters on His Rei Kawakubo Obsession. Uses and abuses of history: A case of a Comme des Garçons fashion show. On 27 January 1995 during Paris Fashion Week, the Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons presented a men’s collection entitled Sleep Among the clothes presented were a number of trouser/ jacket sets. Jewish Identity in Western Pop Culture - Jon Stratton. Designer Pulls Pajamas Called Similar to Death Camp Uniforms. Top Runway Faux Pas. STYLE - Witness for the Defense. The Comme des Garçons "Universe"
Rei Kawakubo. Www.barronsbooks.com/cat/fashdesign_pg168.pdf. How Rei Kawakubo, of Comme des Garçons, Changed Fashion. We speak to Rei Kawakubo's protégé, whose label Noir Kei Ninomiya, is the latest to join the Comme des Garçons family. At Comme des Garcons, Zen-Loving CEO Rewrites the Rules of Retail. Body Modification in Fashion; Crinolines, Yohji Yamamoto & Comme Des Garçons.
Out of the spotlight: fashion's quiet heroes. *95 (IN PARIS, THE OUTSIDERS ARE OFFICIALLY IN) ... FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.pdf. Top Runway Faux Pas. The Cutting Class. Rei Kawakubo - Fashion Designer Encyclopedia - clothing, century, women, men, dress, style, new, body, collection, designs, costume, world, look. Rei Kawakubo - UGLY. # THE FUNAMBULIST PAPERS 51 /// Dress Becomes Body: Fashioning the Force of Form by Erin Manning.
Rei Kawakubo. Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons on Fashion, Art, Death, and Punk Rock. Rei Kawakubo on Her Design Process: ‘I Do Not Feel Happy When a Collection is Understood Too Well’ Rei Kawakubo, of Comme des Garçons, Veiled Like Mona Lisa. The Challenge of Rei Kawakubo. Role Models - John Waters. Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire - Judith Thurman. HABLANDO SOBRE MODA CON JOHN WATERS EL REY (KAWAKUBO) DEL KITSCH.