Rei Kawakubo

At the heart of mystery lies the void, a fertile void, full of yet-unformed possibilities. It is in this space of creative nothingness that Rei Kawakubo rises, high priestess of Japanese avant-garde. Born in 1942 in Tokyo, she grew up in the shadow of an academic father and nourished herself on philosophy and fine arts during her studies at Keio University. Nothing predestined her for fashion: Rei received no formal training in it. But it seems the muses of the invisible leaned over her cradle. Very early she was fascinated by the aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi, that Japanese celebration of imperfection and ephemerality. At the antipodes of the Western ideal of smooth beauty, the young woman sensed that truth lies in cracks, asperities, silences.

In the late 1960s, after a disenchanted stint in the advertising world, Rei began creating clothes independently, free of any school. Her first works were already marked by the seal of strangeness and non-conformism. She breathed into them the soul of Japanese traditions while breaking codes, like a calligrapher drawing new signs with ancient ink.

In 1973, Rei Kawakubo founded her house, which she named Comme des Garçons, a French name, reportedly inspired by a Françoise Hardy song. In her Tokyo boutique, she dared the unthinkable: no enticing window display, no mirror to flatter the client. The clothes were relegated to the back, as if to attract only initiates. From the start, Comme des Garçons declared its refusal of easy seductions. Rei sculpted a universe dominated by black, a colour despised on runways at the time, which she initially used exclusively. For her, black was a manifesto, the mourning of conventions, the elegant evening, the primordial void from which form arises. She herself always dressed in black, a frail and shadowy silhouette pacing backstage like a spectre watching over her creations.

At the turn of the 1980s, a wave of Japanese designers swept over Paris. Kenzo had opened the breach; Miyake and Yamamoto were storming through. Rei, for her part, prepared her own offensive, even more radical. In 1981, rejecting the official calendar, she presented on the margins of Paris fashion week a show titled “Lace”, at the same time as her friend and former companion Yohji Yamamoto. At first, few witnessed this clandestine event. But those who did never forgot the shock: it was described as a “veritable Japanese electroshock [leaving] one speechless”, recounted an observer. On the podium: clothes torn, holed, frayed, defying any idea of finish or traditional “beauty.” The models looked as if emerging from a poetic apocalypse, dressed in black and shapeless forms. It was as if Rei Kawakubo had destroyed in one blow all the false idols of fashion, easy seduction, cheerful colour, conventional femininity, to reveal a new beauty born from the rubble. Some cried scandal, speaking of “Hiroshima chic” or “bag-lady fashion,” so disconcerted were they by these silhouettes of the poor , figures ragged but strangely radiant. Others sensed the birth of a revolution. Rei had just made a clean slate, taking minimalism and anti-fashion to a level never seen.

In 1982, now awaited at every turn, she showed in Paris a second act named “Destroy”. This time, the entire fashion world trained its spotlights on her. And the void’s high priestess did not disappoint: once more she sabotaged the canons of good taste. The models, faces streaked with war paint, pounded the floor to the sound of drums, clad in chic rags and voluminous black tatters. Rei Kawakubo wanted to “demonstrate what beauty is in clothing poverty and imperfection,” it was explained. And indeed, she revealed a hidden beauty – austere, spiritual – nestled in lack and rupture. This was the founding act of anti-fashion: Rei became the figurehead of that movement rejecting the established mode. Alongside Yamamoto and others, she buried the remnants of ’80s flashy glamour to open the way for a stripped-down, cerebral aesthetic where the garment questions rather than pleases.

After the initial revolt, Rei Kawakubo patiently built a singular empire. Her clothes continued to intrigue, oscillating between incomprehension and adoration. They were described as abstruse, baffling critics and buyers seeking clear meaning. Each show became an unsettling ritual: models with spiky hair, unwashed and without makeup; sets sparse or conceptual; introspective stagings. “At the exit, some laugh, others question, others still cry genius,” summarized the French press. Rei greeted with equanimity these polarized reactions, almost amused to sow confusion among fashion’s “faithful.” She herself remained sphinx-like: rare in interviews, and sibylline in her answers, often reduced to a few words. She never came out to bow at the end of shows, vanishing into shadow like a ghost. This fierce discretion reinforced her quasi-mystical aura. Rei Kawakubo seemed to erase herself as a person to let only her work speak, true to her deep conviction: to be known for what she creates, not for what she is.

Far from resting on her icon status, Rei never ceased to innovate. She diversified her oeuvre by launching multiple lines under the Comme des Garçons aegis, eventually creating a veritable constellation of nineteen labels covering perfumes, conceptual garments and accessories. “I create my enterprise, not just clothes… the development of the house’s talents are also Comme des Garçons creations,” she explained, justifying this creative proliferation. She gave chances to young disciples, Junya Watanabe, Tao Kurihara, and others, letting them flourish under her wing like a Zen master guiding students to enlightenment. Her art magazine Six, published in the 1980s without a line of text, also explored new visual dimensions of her universe. In the 1990s, she sparingly introduced colour into her work, daring blood red; she launched evocatively named perfumes; even collaborated with H&M in 2008, to the chagrin of some purists. In 2004, with her husband Adrian Joffe, she created the Dover Street Market concept store, an avant-garde space blending fashion, art and experiment, exported from London to Tokyo, New York and beyond.

Rei Kawakubo thus transformed not only the perception of clothing, but also the industry’s landscape. She showed that a radical revolt can become a new orthodoxy, that the void can engender a teeming universe. Her fundamental avant-garde principle is the quest for the invisible: seeing beauty where others see nothing, shaping the new out of nothingness. She liberated the female body from the injunctions of seduction; with her, being takes precedence over appearing. Her creations, far from hindering the body, invite it to move differently, to inhabit a novel space between garment and skin. Many artists and thinkers see in her work a philosophical meditation on identity and difference.

Reflecting on the path of Rei Kawakubo, one learns to embrace the unexpected and the imperfect. She teaches us that breaking the rules can become an act of faith in one’s own vision. In our often formulaic lives, her example invites us not to fear the astonished gaze of others when we take unconventional paths. Like her, dare to cut into the fabric of daily life new forms of expression, even if they displease conservatives. Rei’s revelation of the void is a lesson in inner freedom: it’s when one accepts to empty one’s mind of imposed expectations that one’s most authentic creativity can emerge. Her spiritual legacy in fashion, and beyond, is a call for absolute sincerity and valuing difference. Whoever ventures off the beaten paths of conformity walks in Rei’s sacred footsteps, making of their own existence a singular and profound work.