For several years now Rei Kawakubo, in Comme des Garçons art, has exclusively dedicated to clues, atmospheres and evocation her own representation of the ongoing collection. Emancipated of any kind of obligation towards the expectations of the global audience, the Japanese designer delights with her exhibitions that are closer to the art world rather than the sector of belonging.  The runway is not dedicated to garments but to textile provocations, architectonic structures that surround the sacrificed bodies of models lend to carry oversized sculptures, deliberately cumbersome and disproportionate compared to the available space.

Impossible not to ask yourself why or what is the plausible message content in this artistic drift. Maybe a self-granted freedom of expression, against the monotonous limits forced by the reality of the female body, or a subtle provocation versus a star-system hat becomes increasingly uncritical and exhibitionist. Certainly the dialog has not the purpose of selling. The pared garments are indeed extraordinary pieces of contemporary art that belong in museums or wealthy collectors. The runway show is an idea, a suggestion of the inspiring motif of the season which will be found later translated and much wearable in the development in the show-room. For Autumn/Winter 2016-2017 we witness then poetic collage of antique fabrics, floral tapestries that catapult the public in the XVIII century, the Age of Enlightenment, the rematch of reason over ignorance and superstition.

Rei Kawakubo, however, is not nostalgic and well-mannered, the collage is held together by metal snap buttons, by cuts and raw seams, diagonals that fragment the decorative harmony of time, implying elements defined by herself  as Punk, in the most provocative meaning of the term.

Synthetic leather, studs, constant asymmetries  and details that can be observed in the motives sewed on skirts, in the curvatures of the nodal points of the joints, reinforced as if they were textile armatures. And extensions, adjustable connecting rings, a flexibility in disassembling and reassembling, a continuously adjustable area in lengths and a delicate balance between order and disorder. It is not said that we can return to the original reconstruction, that many the alternatives are. Modernity and tradition, they also alternate in the processing, the ancient Japanese knowing collaborates with the most daring experimentations of the multi-layerd polyester cloth with rayon, cupro and cotton panels, in an encounter that observes how the material determinants and imposes the final shape of the piece, whether is a jacket, skirt or coat.

Needless to assume how Rei Kawakubo, in preparing an original and personal temporal syncretism, punk and Enlightenment, thinks of women determined to stay in their own time with the vigor and exuberance of who has a critical and imaginative independency

Are you planning a trip to the U.S. soon, or perhaps you are already in the vicinity of Salem, Massachusetts? If so, then don’t miss the opportunity to visit the Peabody Essex Museum exhibition going on until January 26, entitled:

Future Beauty: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion

Organised together with the Kyoto Costume Institute and the Barbican Art Gallery of London, the show focuses on how the different conception of beauty expressed by the so-called Japanese school has turned traditional Western fashion styles on their heads and forced people to re-examine the relationship between design, art, fashion and culture.

Whereas most designers’ work centres around the cult of the female body, Japanese avant-garde on the other hand is engaged with transforming it radically, according to Katherine Bowers of WWD (Women’s Wear Daily). And this transfiguration is on display at the Peabody Essex Museum in a selection of pieces exemplifying the different conceptual approach set in motion largely by four major heralds of what could be considered an aesthetic revolution: Rei Kawakubo-Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Junya Watanabe.

This is a wonderful opportunity to explore the complex work of these designers, whose expert knowledge and unquestionable creative genius has the ability to accentuate and respect the female intellect in a way that slick fashion has rarely, if ever, been capable of doing.

If for some reason you absolutely cannot make it to the exhibition, you can still get a feel fo it in our online catalogue which is simply put, the largest selection in the world of Japanese Avant-Garde Fashion…

Many thanks to Peabody Essex Museum for the photos

Mentaelimone (Mintandlemon) – written as one word – is the name of the Spring/Summer 2013 collection by Daniela Gregis. It calls attention to the goods that the earth has to offer and provides a clue as to where the designer from Bergamo is directing her gaze.

The vaguely rural spirit conjured up in her previous creations came through directly from the scenic setting inside the Oratory of the Passion at the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan. Here, the pots of herbs, glass bottles for collecting water and depictions of farmers immersed in the ascetic calm of gardening with wheelbarrows and various tools made for an intimate and welcoming atmosphere – in stark contrast to the aggressive pace of other walkways – to accompany the debut of the familiarly voluminous clothing in that most desirable of materials for the summer season – linen.

The fabrics seem to have been deliberately mistreated and then mended, their folds and cuts bearing the marks of expert craftsmanship. Gregis’ staff certainly must know how to knit and crochet, or weave baskets and hair, which require deft hand movements and a trained eye to follow asymmetrical patterns and explore solutions that go beyond what has already been done before; truly the sure sign of an innovative collection.

This expertise is nourished by comparisons with the likes of Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, as well as through extensive research from travel and contacts that have permitted, as an exclusive client of the renowned Liberty of London, magnificent participation in the summer collection of dresses and jackets.

The Gregis phenomenon continues to grow, cultivating, along with those landscapes sketched in natural dyes, seasonal wear with a very human and poetic quality.