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Designer Rei Kawakubo is The Met Gala 2017’s theme

 

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art new theme for its 2017 Costume Institute exhibition and gala: “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons”.

Opening on May 4, the show will be the first monograph show at the museum to focus on a living designer since its Yves Saint Laurent exhibit in 1983. Rei Kawakubo was chosen because she is one of the most important and influential designers of the past forty years. By inviting us to rethink fashion as a site of constant creation, recreation, and hybridity, she has defined the aesthetics of our time.

The exhibit features about 120 Comme des Garçons womenswear designs by Kawakubo, dating back to the label’s first runway collection in 1981, all the way to her most recent shows. The pieces are arranged by contrasting themes (East/West, male/female, past/present), which touch upon Kawakubo’s fascination with “in-betweenness.”