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japanese girls still tend to sow their wild fashion oats before they settle down with a mate and disappear, if not into the shadows, into a chanel suit. but kawakubo started out making clothes, in the seventies, she said, for a woman "who is not swayed by what her husband thinks." (she was then deep into her black period, and her devotees were known in tokyo as "the crows.") two decades later, and shortly after her own wedding, to adrian joffe—a south african-born student of asian culture ten years her junior, who is the president of comme des garcons international—she told an interview from elle that "one's lifestyle should not be affected by the formality of marriage." [...]
from the beginning of her career, she has insisted that the only way to know her is "through my clothes." her employees, including joffe, treat her with a gingerly deference that seems to be a mixture of awe for her talent and forbearance with her moods. [...]
each of the [guerilla] stores is an ephemeral installation that opens without fanfare and closes after a year. their decorating budgets are less than the price of some handbags at gucci and prada, and original fixtures, including raw cinder block and peeling wallpaper, are left as they are found. brecht might have approved the poetic clothes and the poletarian mise en scene, if not the insurrectionary conceit. "but the word 'guerilla' as rei understands it isn't political," joffe says. "it refers to a small group of like-minded spirits at odds with the majority. she's fascinated by the amish, for example, and the orthodox jews."
- judith thurman, "the misfit: rei kawakubo," new yorker july 4, 2005
posted July 17, 2005 in print.