Rei Kawakubo

Born in Tokyo in 1942, Rei Kawakubo studied art and literature at Keio University, never receiving formal fashion training. She worked in a textile mill, then as a freelance stylist, before founding Comme des Garçons — French for like boys — in Tokyo in 1969 and opening her first store in 1973. Her 1981 Paris debut alongside Yohji Yamamoto introduced an oversized, asymmetric, black-dominated language that critics dubbed Hiroshima chic and that fundamentally reset Western fashion. Beyond the runway she built an empire spanning COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT, Play, the Junya Watanabe and Tao lines, and Dover Street Market. In 2017 the Metropolitan Museum honoured her with only its second monographic show for a living designer.