A Brief History of REI KAWAKUBO ~ World Fashion Sites

Rei Kawakubo is a Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. Born on October 11, 1942, in Tokyo, she is the founder of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market.

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, and as a result is exulted by the industry as an icon of modernity who continues to make 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.

The designer incorporated the label in 1973, a direct result of its popularity with Japanese consumers. For the remainder of the decade Kawakubo would refine her aesthetic and build her company, opening a Tokyo boutique in 1975 and adding a menswear line, Homme Comme des Garçons, in 1978.

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. The designer told The New Yorker in 2005 that she “never intended to start a revolution” — she intended only to show “what I thought was strong and beautiful. It just so happened that my notion was different from everybody else’s.”

Comme des Garçons has collaborated with various other labels over the years including Fred Perry, Levi's Converse All Star, Speedo, Nike, Moncler, Lacoste, Cutler and Gross, Chrome Hearts, Hammerthor, Louis Vuitton, Supreme, and many others.

Comme des Garçons and H&M collaborated on a collection which was released in the fall of 2008. Kawakubo created the 2008 autumn "guest designer" collection at H&M, designing men's and women's clothing along with some children's and a unisex perfume.

Rei is also known for establishing Dover Street Market, whose design ethos can be described as a Comme Des Garcons version of a department store. Originally created in 2004 in London's Dover Street, more DSM locations have opened in Tokyo, Beijing and New York.

Between the 1980s and 1990s Kawakubo was in a relationship with fellow 'Hiroshima Chic' fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, but the relationship ended.

Kawakubo later went on to marry Adrian Joffe, the current CEO of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market.

She lives in Tokyo but often travels to Paris to visits her companies' head offices in the Place Vendôme. She occasionally makes visits to her fashion shows.

The sculptural clothes of Rei Kawakubo are the subject of this year's spring exhibition organized by the Costume Institute at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and every year, celebrities attend the MET Gala, with their fabulous costumes and dresses. Here you can see Rihanna wearing Rei Kawakubo’s beautiful Comme des Garçons costume on the red carpet.

The exhibition includes over 150 garments – designed between the 1980s and now – that demonstrate her avant-garde ideas, her attitude towards fashion as an extension of the body, and her impact on the industry. The exhibition is spilt into nine themes that each examine a duality found in Kawakubo's designs, which lie somewhere between art and clothing. The garments, many of which have wildly exaggerated silhouettes, are also grouped by color rather than age to further emphasize the connections across her catalogue of work.