Wabi Sabi
Rei Kawakubo (Japanese, b. 1942) for Comme des Garçons (Japanese, founded 1969). Dress, 1983. Black wool jersey. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2003 (2003.79.21).
The impact of Rei Kawakubo’s designs in Paris in 1983 was groundbreaking. Her runway presentation, with its unconventional models wearing body-obscuring layers rendered in coarsely textured materials, was received as transgressive and anti-fashion. Read more »