mary-masked

Rei Kawakubo Exhibit at the Met

Published: August 28th 2017, 8:29:14 pm

I should thank The Met for making sure my parents visit me every summer, but I guess the membership fee is thanks enough.

This year we went to the Rei Kawakubo Exhibit and it was fucking weird. I loved it. I don't know how she's made a career of making REALLY WEIRD clothing that no one would ever wear but I'm really glad she did.

Most of her inspiration seemed to come from cutting up pre-existing garments and sewing them back together in bizarre ways like "What if this jacket had 8 sleeves?" or "What if I made a dress out of six dresses sewn on top of each other?"  or "what if I decorated this veil with children's clothes?" or, often "What if I added padding in weird places so that the wearer no longer looks human?" 

The answer was always "It will look amazing, sometimes creepy, and your ready-to-wear designer will cry." But as much crying as the ready-to-wear designer probably did, she translated these insane creations into still-pretty-insane clothes that you can buy in a department store and people will pay upwards of $500 to wear it. How? Why? Is it because she's Japanese? Maybe.

Is someone wearing this to the office?

I hope my incredulousness doesn't come off as sarcastic. I really loved the clothes as costumes and works of art. There were some elements that I actually *would* wear on a normal day. I loved the way she mixed fabric textures like velvet with vinyl and muslin with tulle. As someone who loves re-purposing and modifying already made clothes, I really liked her clothing collage approach to fashion. It's not the show to go to if you want to see really pretty clothes or get normal burlesque inspiration, but I really loved it.