(single piano note plays)
ANDREW BOLTON: Rei Kawakubo is the first living designer
we've displayed in a monographic exhibition
since Saint Laurent in 1983.
She's doesn't want one grand narrative
to be imposed on her work, so the actual display itself
is presented as an artistic intervention.
It's mazed like almost like a playground.
You're encouraged to experience it
at your own pace, in your own route.
When you first walk into the gallery,
you'll see red ensembles
from three different collections:
"Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body,"
"Invisible Clothes,"
and "Two Dimensions."
They're three expressions of how Rei blurs the boundaries
between the body and dress.
And there's eight overarching themes
or dichotomies in the exhibition.
The first dichotomy is a section called
"Design/Not Design"--
a process-driven category
that looks at Rei's modes of expression.
The idea of the unfinished, the idea of asymmetry,
the idea of elimination,
and the technical leitmotifs in her work--
notions of fusion,
the notion of juxtaposition.
"Fashion/Anti-Fashion"
looks at her early work from the 1980s
when she began showing in Paris.
It was oversized, asymmetric,
black became the color associated with her.
It was so revolutionary,
one of the questions that she raises every season
about identity and beauty and femininity can be located
in her early work from the 1980s.
So, the "Model/Multiple"
looks at one particular collection,
"Abstract Excellence,"
which was a collection of 34 skirts.
The illusion is
of uniformity, and the idea of one skirt,
but every single skirt was different.
We have one section of the exhibition called "High/Low"
and that's really about street style
through two particular collections,
"A Motorbike Ballerina" and "Bad Taste."
Rei described "Motorbike Ballerina"
as Harley Davidson meets Margot Fonteyn.
It's a collection that combines tutus with biker jackets,
so, again, fusing two types of garments,
but also conflating notions
that are believed in popular culture.
In her collection "Bad Taste,"
she conflates both punk and fetish styles
into one garment, using seemingly cheap materials
like polyester.
And then we have a section called "Then/Now"
looking at Rei's approach to time and temporality.
Rei consistently argues
that she doesn't look back, so her engagement with history
is a constant rejection
and redefinition of it.
The garments in "Then/Now" look at her engagement
with particular historical garments.
She has an affinity to the 19th century,
in particular the overblown silhouette
created by crinolines and bustles.
Part of that section's also looking at one's own
temporal progression through life,
traditionally associated
with the rites of marriage/death.
"Self/Other" looks at
the idea of hybrid identities,
and within "Self/Other" there's three subsections--
"Child/Adult,"
"Male/Female," and "East/West."
In "East/West," Rei is using
both Eastern traditions
with Western traditions of clothing,
tailoring and draping, combined in one ensemble.
Within the "Male/Female" category,
she'll fuse together two garments
that are traditionally associated with either sex,
either a skirt or trousers, which she'll morph
into one ensemble.
Her 2D collection bridged the gap
between "Child/Adult"
usually made out of a felt type of material,
and it was all about age-appropriate dressing
and this idea of playfulness.
We have a section called "Object/Subject,"
which is more about hybrid bodies,
where the dress and the body becomes one.
One of her most radical collections
even to this day, was her 1997 collection
"Dress Meets Body, Body Meets Dress,"
included padded structures made out of goose down feathers
that completely disfigured the body.
So it was a celebration of deformity,
and what she was challenging
were these normative conventions of beauty.
So, it still stands out
as one of the most provocative collections,
more so because often it was done in very childlike
and sweet bubblegum pink gingham.
The final section in the exhibition
is a section called "Clothes/Not Clothes."
It focused mainly on her last eight collections,
which Rei feels are the result
of this radical rupture in her design process.
It was in spring 2014
where she began to see fashion as objects on the body.
It's more akin to conceptual art or performance art.
It wasn't really about wearability.
Prior to that, her clothing always
was viable, this clothing.
So, she still doesn't define herself as an artist,
but she's been forced to enter the debate
of art and fashion.
What we always try to do in our exhibitions
is to encourage people to think differently
about the boundaries of fashion.
I think people will have to work hard.
The design itself is challenging,
and the objects contained therein
are also challenging.
But I think people will come away from the exhibition
rethinking the art of the in-between.
Rei is this figure
who is about originality.
So, every single season, she reinvents herself
and reinvents fashion.