Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between

Gallery views of The Costume Institute's spring 2017 exhibition, Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, curated by Andrew Bolton.

The Costume Institute's spring 2017 exhibition examines the work of Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, known for her avant-garde designs and ability to challenge conventional notions of beauty, good taste, and fashionability. The thematic show features approximately 140 examples of Kawakubo's womenswear for Comme des Garçons dating from the early 1980s to her most recent collection.

Abstraction/Representation features Invisible Clothes, which Kawakubo considers "the clearest and most extreme version of Comme des Garçons." The abstract, sculptural qualities of the ensembles are emblematic of her indifference to the "representational" characteristics of clothing. Several of the garments comprise multiple versions merged together, an idea also evident in the 2011 collection No Theme (Multiple Personalities, Psychological Fear). Unlike the earlier pieces, however, the more recent ones disrupt and dissolve any hierarchy between body and dress.

The garments included in Invisible Clothes challenge the dominance of the body by obscuring, displacing, and in some instances eliminating figural elements such as the sleeve, bodice, neckline, and waistline. As the figure recedes into volume and planarity or dematerializes through fragmentation, body and dress become interdependent and indistinguishable. Of these designs, Kawakubo noted: "If you say clothes are to be worn, then perhaps they are not really clothes. . . . They are not art, but they don’t have to be clothes, either."