Comme des Garcons Perfume Section:
In 1982 Rei Kawakubo designed a "tear illusion" dress similar to the one made by Elsa Schiaparelli in the 30's. However, Kawakubo only teased the viewer with the possibility of a torn garment, and respected the integrity of the material.
A year later, Kawakubo introduced a furniture line and also received the Mainichi Newspaper Fashion award. She opened her first New York boutique for Comme des Garçons in 1986. The same year, there was an exhibition of her fashion photographs at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. She also received the Night of the Stars Award in New York.
In 1987, the Fashion Institute of Technology, U.S.A., honoured Rei Kawakubo as one of the leading women designers of the 20th century. An exhibition was held, along with clothes by Madeleine Vionnet and Claire McCardell.
By the late 80's Comme des Garcons operated more than 300 shops worldwide. A fourth of these stores were located outside Japan.
Rei Kawakubo is the sole owner of Comme des Garcons. She is said to keep responsibility for all artistic and business issues of her company, and economic information on the Kawakubo empire is kept very secret and difficult to obtain.
Comme des Garcons clothing output is said to outnumber the combined effort of Japanese competitors Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake by far since in 1990 sales were of $ 100 million.
After successfully entering the markets outside Japan, Kawakubo also started to manufacture abroad. Production is concentrated in France to avoid trade barriers for Japanese products and maintain competitiveness with European designers.
Junya Watanabe was a designer at Comme des Garçons, a protégé of Rei Kawakubo, who later started out on his own. He still creates many designs for the Comme des Garçons label.
Kitmeout - Today's Fashion Online
