Met Museum Celebrates Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garçons

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has opened a major retrospective dedicated to Rei Kawakubo, the Japanese founder of Comme des Garçons. Titled "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between," the exhibition is curated by Andrew Bolton of the Costume Institute. It features 150 garments from the early 1980s to the present, displayed on tailor's mannequins across eight themed rooms. The show coincides with the Met Gala, the annual fundraising event hosted by Anna Wintour on the first Monday of May. This is the first monographic exhibition on a living designer at the Met since 1983, when Yves Saint Laurent was honored. Kawakubo, along with Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake, is credited with bringing Japanese fashion to global prominence. Founded in Tokyo in 1969, Comme des Garçons is known for asymmetrical, austere designs in black, gray, and white. A companion book, published by the Met and distributed by Yale University Press, features photographs by Paolo Roversi, Kazumi Kurigami, Craig McDean, and Collier Schorr, with art direction by Fabien Baron. The exhibition runs through September 4, 2017.