Recently I started reading John Water’s new book entitled Role Models and was psyched to find that the Pope of Trash dedicated an entire chapter to Rei Kawakubo (this is almost as exciting as the time I found out that ROBIN WILLIAMS regularly buys burkas from Antwerp Sixer Walter Van Beirendonck.) Here’s a bit of what Mr. Waters had to say about his own personal fashion predilections and Ms. Kawkubo:
“Fashion is very important to me. My “look” for the last twenty years or so has been “disaster at the dry cleaners.” I shop in reverse. When I can afford to buy a new outfit, something has to be wrong with it. Purposely wrong. Comme des Garcons (like some boys) is my favorite line of clothing, designed by the genius fashion dictator Rei Kawakubo. She specializes in clothes that are torn, crooked, permanently wrinkled, ill-fitting, and expensive. What used to be called “seconds” (clothes that were on sale in baragin basements of department stores because of accidental irregularities) is now called “couture.” Ms. Kawakubo is my god. The fashion historian Kazuko Koike has described Rei as “almost like the leader of a religious movement.” I genuflect to Rei’s destructino of the fashion rules. She is formidable, reclusive, intimidating, and has described her work as an “exercise in suffering.”
Tags: Comme Des Garçons, john waters, rei kawakubo
