A Rei of Light, a Whiff of Pleasure
An interview with Rei Kawakubo, the driving force of Comme des Garcons, is a polite but rigorous ritual.
At the sparkling new deli atop Barneys New York in Beverly Hills--where she is launching her first fragrance--neither Kawakubo nor her aides dine. Questions are painstakingly translated into Japanese, often by two different people--to get the nuances just right. Everyone works hard to ensure Kawakubo understands and is understood.
Yet a decade after she began turning fashion on its head, ridding it of artifice and proposing an alternative presentation of the self, there is something Kawakubo doesn’t understand: the current fascination with fashion ideas from the past.
“Rei feels she wants to try to transcend that and bring the genders together,” explained Kawakubo’s husband, Adrian Joffe. But asked if clothing is political, Kawakubo draws back. “I’m not sure political is the right word,” she said. “Clothes are a means of social expression, an expression of one’s own values.”
While perfume, she said, is a “private pleasure.”
Kawakubo registered the name Comme des Garcons for a fragrance 12 years ago, “just in case.” It wasn’t until last year, though, that she submitted a two-page, handwritten concept of what she was after--in a “very abstract” form--to four different perfume houses, anonymously.
One young perfumer concocted a fragrance that matched Kawakubo’s idea exactly. “Later, he told us he had the feeling it was for Rei,” said Joffe.
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Work Those Pecs: It is, they like to say in the land of lingerie, the “natural extension of the Wonderbra,” a view that almost begs the question: What in the world could possibly be natural about a padded, push-up sports bra, the latest creation of Ventura-based Fashion Forms?
The extension part is easier to understand.
At Robinsons-May, where the Our Sports Secret line recently hit the fitting room, one saleswoman touted the garment’s superior support system. Fashion Forms President Ann Deal, however, cuts straight to the point: “A lot of gals like to go to the gym to find a boyfriend, and it looks good . . . . It gives you cleavage.”
Beyond that, she contends, it’s almost public service, cutting down on a certain contour confusion. “If you start with your Wonderbra in the morning and you go to the gym and suddenly you’re flat, well, this lets you be consistent all the way through.”
All that and the foam pads absorb sweat too.
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Kudos and Cleavage: We weren’t surprised to learn Richard Tyler has been named Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. But does he really have to share the dais with the Wonderbra? The CFDA, which honored the sneaker last year, is bestowing a similar honor on Gossard’s feat of engineering for 1994. We can hardly wait for next year’s winner.
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Men Never Make Passes . . .: Courtroom appearances are the occasion for the best make-overs these days. Witness the kinder, gentler Marcia Clark, the sweater-wearing Menendez brothers, the bespectacled Heidi Fleiss. What happened to the party girl who posed in an itty-bitty bikini in Vanity Fair not long ago? Yep, glasses make airheads look serious and glamour girls seem smart. Hey, Heidi, how’d that darn Pythagorean Theory go again ?
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One Store’s Loss Is Our Closet’s Gain: Vulture tendencies surfaced last Friday as we made a beeline for the I. Magnin close-out sale. (Our arms still ache.) Regular and sale-priced items were discounted 20%. Even so, the deals were bittersweet. One veteran saleswoman, overcome by the frenzy of rabid bargain hunters, muttered sadly: “I hate this. It isn’t what I spent the last 15 years of my career doing.” Although we sympathized, we were a teensy bit miffed when the saleswoman removed the nice hanger from our expensive designer jacket. Like they really need it now.
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Cosmetic Personae: Intellectual provocateur Camille Paglia has abandoned her gender-neutral guise for what looks like a bad Merle Norman make-over. You know, heavy on the pancake? Unfortunately, there aren’t any makeup tips in Paglia’s new book, “Vamps & Tramps.” Thank heavens, then, for punk-rocker-turned-designer Vivienne Westwood, who certainly doesn’t mind mixing anti-social behavior with cosmetics. In Allure, Westwood reveals why she makes her face look as pasty white as possible: “It’s so much more contemptuous.” Duh!
* With contributions from Maria La Ganga and Cindy LaFavre Yorks
* Inside Out is published Thursdays.
