Rei Kawakubo

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Rei Kawakubo ( jap. 川久保玲 , Kawakubo Rei * 11. October 1942 in Tokyo ) is a Japanese ready-to-wear - fashion designer from Tokyo.

In 1981 Kawakubo first showed her avant-garde , unconventional fashion at the Paris fashion shows, after she had presented her women's fashion collection in Japan since 1973. Her collections for women and men, often rated as intellectual , are marketed under the fashion brand Comme des Garçons . The company is headquartered in Tokyo and has had a branch in Paris since 1982 ( Comme des Garçons SA ). Kawakubo has been married to the British Adrian Joffe since 1992 , who is also Chairman of the Board of Comme des Garçons .

Life

Beginnings in Japan

Kawakubo studied art at Keiō University in Tokyo. Her father was a university professor. In 1964 she began to work in the advertising department of a chemical company. Three years later she became a freelance stylist in Tokyo. At the time, her job and her independence were considered a break with the traditions of the country in Japan . Since Kawakubo disliked the Japanese fashion of the 60s and 70s, she began to design her own fashion in 1969. In 1973 she founded her own company with the French name Comme des Garçons Co. Ltd (dt. 'Like boys '), which she still runs alone, and presented her first women's collection in Japan. The use of French expressions, especially in fashion, is still popular in Japan to this day. In 1976, Kawakubo opened its first flagship store in Tokyo. She developed the shop philosophy of minimalism : the architect Takao Kawasaki developed a completely white-tiled shop in which only a few items of clothing were for sale. From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, Kawakubo and the Japanese avant-garde designer Yohji Yamamoto were a couple.

Working abroad

In 1981 Kawakubo showed her high-priced women's collection for the first time in Paris , which hit the European and international designers represented there with an absolutely opposite design philosophy. The fashion show was a scandal and attracted a lot of media attention. Critics described the gloomy collection as a "post-atomic rag look", " Hiroshima chic" and " Quasimodo style". In 1978 Kawakubo started an equally high-priced men's collection called Comme des Garçons Homme . As a result, further sub-brands for women and men were added to the portfolio. In 1982 Kawakubo opened the first store outside of Japan, in Paris, and joined the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter . Since then she has also designed furniture and interiors for Parisian fashion stores. <Quelle?> They quickly began to produce for the European market. Her first perfume was launched in 1994 with the name Comme des Garçons , and other perfumes followed. In the late 1980s, Kawakubo published his own art magazine called Six (derived from the Sixth Sense ), which appeared twice a year before it was finally discontinued in 1991.

In 1992 Kawakubo left the design of several collections to her assistant and protégé Junya Watanabe (* 1961), and later also to her student Tao Kurihara. Nevertheless, Kawakubo is still the sole owner of her company and financially independent. In 2007 Kawakubo designed a polo shirt collection for the British fashion label Fred Perry . In autumn 2008, she created a low-priced collection and a unisex perfume for the Swedish fashion house H&M . Furthermore, Kawakubo designed a swimwear collection for the swimwear manufacturer Speedo . She also worked with Vivienne Westwood and in 2008 created an exclusive bag collection for Louis Vuitton . With international brands such as Levi's , Lacoste , Nike , The North Face , Moncler , Converse , Vans , 10 Corso Como, Visvim and others. a. there have been design collaborations in the past, often under the direction of Watanabe.

Clothing lines

see Comme des Garçons

Marketing and sales

In Japan , there are several boutiques of the label Comme des Garçons , two of them alone in Tokyo. The new flagship store is located in Tokyo's Minami-Aoyama district. Department stores such as B. Mitsukoshi and Seibu also market the label. There are only two own stores in Europe, in Paris and London . The company's own Dover Street Market in London, named after its address in Dover Street, offers not only the CDG collections but also other international designer brands, mostly in the shop-in-shop concept. In 2012, a Dover Street Market branch opened in Tokyo's Ginza . Another CDG shop exists in New York . In Germany, very few shops market the Japanese designer's brands, including the former Guerrilla Store in Berlin (see below). In 2008, Kawakubo opened two pocket stores in the Paris districts of Marais and Abbesses . The new concept consists of a small, minimalist shop that only sells the Play Comme des Garçons brand , accessories and perfumes. Another store called White Box opened in Hong Kong in 2007 . There have been temporary BLACK Comme des Garçons boutiques in Japan since the late 2000s .

A marketing project by the company was established in Berlin in 2004: the Guerrilla Store concept provides for an annual relocation of a Comme des Garçons store, which is only temporarily built, away from the typical shopping streets. Stores have already been opened in Los Angeles , Warsaw , New York , Berlin (3 ×), Singapore , Moscow and Vienna and closed again after a year. In summer 2008, Rei Kawakubo's guerrilla store was a guest at the Düsseldorf NRW Forum .

Literature (chronological)

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Portrait: Rei Kawakubo ( Memento from May 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), ftd.de, March 21, 2007
  2. ↑ Comme des Garçons starts guerrilla concept in Berlin  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , textilwirtschaft.de, February 25, 2004@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.textilwirtschaft.de  
  3. ↑ Guerilla Stores: Fashionable Insider Tips , morgenpost.de, October 5, 2004
  4. ^ The silent occupiers in Karl-Marx-Allee , taz.de, April 7, 2005
personal data
SURNAME Kawakubo, Rei
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 川 久保 玲 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese haute couture fashion designer
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo