Rei Kawakubo, who was born in 1942, is widely acknowledged as one of the world's most original and influential fashion designers. She studied literature and fine arts at the University of Keio and worked for several years in an advertising department as a stylist before launching her women's wear line Comme des Garcons in Japan in 1969. Worldwide recognition followed her first Paris parade in 1981, which she presented with Yohji Yamamoto.

Right from the start of her career, Kawakubo has continually experimented with existing forms of dressing. Her early 1980s collections featured boiled black wool with frayed edges and holes that enveloped the body like a baggy multi functional piece of clothing. Another notable avant-garde collection presented in 1997 featured randomly placed bulges, creating humpbacks, crooked shoulders and wide hips. Much of her work has challenged tenets of Western fashion. The innovative use of asymmetrical cut, worn textures, frayed edges and a palette of blacks made Kawakubo one of the most radical of avant garde designers of the 1980s and 1990s.

On viewing Kawakubo's Spring Summer 2005 collection, the fashion journalist Sarah Mower reported: 'Take a huge, rough-hewn biker jacket, lash the seams with crude saddle stitching, and put it atop a delicate Swan Lake-worthy tutu. That was the startling collision of disparate elements at Comme des Garçons. "I thought about the power of the motorbike � the machine itself � and the strength of a ballet dancer's arms," Rei Kawakubo said. In other words, another chapter (Hell's Ballerinas, perhaps?) in her career-long philosophical investigation into women and strength. Kawakubo's explanation clarified why the dancers' stiff leather or neoprene jackets were cut with rolled-up sleeves, and how their openwork inserts mimicked the cooler vents in a motorcycle engine, and why curviform foam-rubber seat-covers sometimes morphed into skirts. Done in black, tan, or orange, the jackets had the heft of a truly cool idea and made a strangely beautiful contrast with the fragile pinks and whites of the tutus.'

(Style.com. http://www.style.com/fashionshows/collections/S2005RTW/review/CMMEGRNS)

Documentation prepared by Mandy Crook, Assistant Curator.

This outfit was designed by Rei Kawakubo for the Comme des Garcons Spring Summer 2005 ready to wear collection.

Outfit, consisting of jacket, skirt and shorts, women's, leather/ nylon/ polyester/ chloroprene rubber, designed by Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garcons, Japan, Spring Summer 2005

Short waist length jacket, loose fitting with three quarter length sleeves and a turn down collar made of thick taupe leather. The jacket has surface decoration of thick leather thong top stitching at seams and on the turned up hems of the sleeves. There are decorative metal buckles at left and right back hem. Jacket is fastened with off centre front zip. Jacket has two pockets inside at lower front left and right. Jacket is not lined.

Below knee length skirt made of black textured nylon fabric. The underskirt is A-line, while the overskirt is padded to create a rounded sculptural look. The back of the skirt scoops up to hip level and is laced at centre back waist with thick black leather thong. Skirt is decorated with thick black leather thong stitches.

Shorts are tight fitting and made of black rubber. They lace up at the centre front fly opening with thick black leather thong.

Two fabric samples, one of skirt fabric, one of shorts fabric, in plastic zip lock bags.

Designed: Kawakubo, Rei; Japan

Made: Comme des Garcons; Japan; 2005

See part records for details

2005/174/1