Dress

Comme des Garçons|Rei Kawakubo

fall/winter 2012–13 · polyester, cotton · Costume Institute

Since founding Comme des Garçons ("like some boys") in 1969, the Tokyo-based designer Rei Kawakubo has consistently defined and redefined the aesthetics of our time. Season after season, collection after collection, she upends conventional notions of beauty and disrupts accepted characteristics of the fashionable body. This dress of polyester felt from Kawakubo's autumn/winter 2012–13 collection "2 Dimensions" was designed to blur the boundaries between the body and the dress. The bold, primary colors and flat, outsize silhouette challenges the rules of age-appropriate dressing but also engages the concept of kawaii (cuteness) - a key aspect of Japanese popular culture defined by playfulness and performativity.

Artist

Comme des Garçons|Rei Kawakubo

Date

fall/winter 2012–13

Medium

polyester, cotton

Culture

Japanese

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Comme des Garçons, 2014