Kodak Portra400 by kujira-to-tarkovsky on Flickr.
…
“One may have such yearnings at any age, and Kawakubo was into her thirties when she met the love of her youth, Yohji Yamamoto. There was something pharaonic about their glamour as a couple, that of two regal and feline siblings with a priestly aura, and they shared the regency of a new generation in Japanese design. Both are alumni of Keio University (Yamamoto was two years behind her) and children of enterprising single mothers—his a widow who owned a dress shop. Yet, as the eloquent idiosyncrasy of their work suggests, a match between equals is rarely a balanced pattern whose cuts and edges align.
[…] and Yohji likes to say that ‘perfection is the devil,’ which I think is true for Rei. Japanese temples were always left unfinished for that reason.” It is her perception that “they admire each other deeply, but there’s a lot of baggage between them.” She (Irène Silvagni) referred me to the baggage depot at the end of “Talking to Myself,” in which Yamamoto sets down some fragmentary aperçus on a variety of existential subjects, including alcohol, gambling, insomnia, and women. “I’m always assuming that if she’s my girlfriend she won’t create a scandal,” he writes of a nameless consort. “I’m sure of this even if it’s unfounded.”
The Misfit
Rei Kawakubo is a Japanese avant-gardist of few words, and she changed women’s fashion.
BY JUDITH THURMAN
ALPHABET
Edited by SULEMAN ANAYA and JOERG KOCH
32c Magazine
HISTORY
Elsa Klensch: When did you first become interested in fashion?
Rei Kawakubo: When I was about 24. I’d been working in the adverstising department of a textile company, and I was asked to style the print ads and TV commercials. I liked the work so much that after two years I decided to leave the firm and work as freelance stylist.
EK: Later, when you decide to become a designer, was it because you couldn’t find clothes you thought were right for your work?
RK: It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t find the kinds of clothes I wanted. I was frustrated by the way we chose the clothes.EK: When and how did you get started?
RK: In about 1969 I rented a room that was part of a Tokyo graphics design studio and set up with two assistants.EK: What sort of clothes did you produce?
RK: Clothes I felt were modern and new. But they were commercial as well; I was in business, and I had to support myself.EK: How did you decide on the name Comme des Garçons?
RK: I don’t remember exactly. I know I wanted something long, something with a ring to it. One of the people working with me said, “How about ‘Comme des Garçons?’” And I thought, “Why not?”EK: Your own name has a ring to it.
RK: I didn’t think of myself as a desig- ner. It was a business, a group of people working together. I wanted a name that would represent the whole group.Elsa Klensch, “Another World of Style … Rei Kawakubo,”
Vogue (New York), August 1987.
