REI KAWAKUBO.
History of Rei Kawakubo. Rei Kawakubo born in Tokyo at October 1942, 66-yearold Japanese fashion designer, founder of Comme des Garçons. After graduation she studied fine arts and literature at Tokyo's Keio University. As an untrained fashion designer she stared to work as a textile company and after that in 1967 she went to work as a freelance stylist. In 1973 she made her own company Comme des Garçons Co. Ltd in Tokyo and after that she opened her own boutique in Tokyo in 1975. In 1978 she started her first men’s line. 3 years later she started presenting her fashion lines in Paris each season after that she opened a boutique in Paris in 1982. That was for the European people a shock because she had collections with black and 'Hiroshima chic’ what was not popular in this time, she refused to change it. Everybody knew her work had dark colors and weird design so she started to use brighter colors, she said ‘’black is no longer strong and has become harder to use. 2 years later she opened a store in New York.
Rei Kawakubo was not only a designer of clothes but she was also an architect, graphic designer and a furniture designer. Around 1990 she published her own biannual magazine, 'Six' (standing for 'sixth sense'), with only a little text and mainly photographs and images that were inspiring for her.
Rei makes of her clothes art pieces; it’s not just a random dress with 3 arms or a dress with bumps. She likes to shock people, showing the world that it can be different. Her concept that clothes should express something other than sexuality was unthinkable. Everybody took the traditional fashion and nobody was different. For inspiration she looked at street culture, masculine dress and the Japanese culture. Everything she made was a challenge for her.
In summer 1997 she looked at the way the body of the women was going. She made the lumps and bump collection. It’s showed the women hips, boobs and shoulders, the silhouette of the women in an extreme way.
Spring 2004 Rei made another change on the catwalks. When every designer showed the femininity of the women, Rei made a collection with voluminous skirts cut from traditional Japanese fabrics. Rei Kawakubo is actually quite shy and don’t speak a lot with the media. She says that her creations already say enough and that they don’t need explanations’.
In 1998 she created a perfume named Odeur 53. This perfumes smells like burned rubber and nail polish, this is because you need to recognize the smell to give a sense.
A lot of designers are inspired by the designs of Rei Kawakubo. Designers like the Belgian Martin Margiela and Ann Demeulemeester, as well as Austrian designer Helmut Lang. Comme des Garรงons means like boys in French. Comme des Garรงons has more then 200 shops around the world. They do a lot with 'Guerrilla' stores. The popup stores that stand mostly a year and in places such as Helsinki, Barcelona, Singapore, Stockholm, Los Angeles and Glasgow. March 2007, Comme des Garรงons opened a 3 level store in Hong Kong called WHITE BOX.
Rei Kawakubo nowadays. Autumn 2008 Rei was the guest designer of H&M and made a collection for women, men, and children and with a unisex perfume. She also collaborates with Vivienne Westwood on a collection sold exclusively in Tokyo. And many more other labels. Some people think the clothes of Rei are not good for everybody. They say it’s more for Asian, small, tiny people. Other say it’s actually better for people with size 42 because when you wear Comme des Garçons you think about your position, how you’re showing and standing, not your age of size. Some things Rei said: “I never felt my work had anything to do with being a woman. I am not a feminist. I was never interested in any movement as such. I just decided to make a company built around creation, and with creation as my sword, I could fight the battles I wanted to fight.”
And about her designs she says: I can never remember where this one word came from. I never start a collection with some historical, social, cultural or any other concrete reference or memory. After I find the word, I then do not develop it in any logical way. I deliberately avoid any order to the thought process after finding the word and instead think about the opposite of the word, or something different to it, or behind it.’
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In 2004, she opened a department store. A multilevel store conceptualized by Rei Kawakubo. With Comme Des Garçons line and invited other designers such as Lanvin, Alexander McQueens, Givenchy, Loewe, Nina Ricci and Salvatore Ferragamo to join her in the department store. Rei has picked them all.
The fall 2009 of collection of Comme des Garçons reminds you of laundry. A lot of blankets and a lot of army colors, beige, brown and black. But also dark red and blue.
Celebrities such as Katie Holmes, Mischa Barton are wearing clothes of Rei Kawakubo. People like the her label but sometimes it’s just to extreme. It’s more like arts and really ready to wear.
LANVIN.
History of Jeanne Lanvin. Jeanne-Marie Lanvin born on January 1, 1867 in Brittany, France. She was the eldest of the 11 children of BernardConstant Lanvin, and journalist Sophie-White. The family Lanvin was really poor. Jeanne started her career when she was 13 years old, she trained to be a dressmaker at the house called Talbot. At age 16 she went to work as a milliner for Madame Félix, hat shop on Paris’ famed Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. After that she moved to Barcelona, Spain to work for the guardhouse Cordeau. In 1885 she set up her own fashion shop and in 1889 she opens her own fashion boutique on the Rue Boissy d'Anglais with her own collection. In 1896 she married with Emilio di Pietro, an Italian nobleman. After that 2 year they get birth to a daughter: Marquerite (Marie Blanch) but in 1903 Jeanne and Emilio divorced. After the birth of Marquerite, Jeanne started to design clothes for her daughter. People loved the clothes she makes for her daughter and people ask for copies for their own children. Her fortune was made; she became the
attention on mother and daughter outfits. She started to sell the clothes for daughter but her talent was so big that she started a women collection in 1909. The youthfulness of both was an important aspect of 20th century fashion. In 1901 Jeanne Lanvin name appears in the fashion yearbook. And in 1907 she married again with Xavier Melet, a French journalist. Jeanne went to travel around to world with Xavier where she buys a lot of fabrics. In 1914 Jeanne was inspired by orientalism, she turned to exotic eveningwear. Just before the World War I, she created her ‘’Robes de Style’’ inspired by the 18th and 19th century costumes. These full-skirted dresses in bouffant style did not become fashionable until the early 1920s. In the 1920s Jeanne Lanvin opened shops with home decor, menswear, furs and lingerie. In 1926 she was the first designer who dressed the whole family. She opened shops in Nice, Cannes and Biarritz In 1924 Jeanne Lanvin started to create perfume and in 2 years time she created 40 different ones. In 1927 she created her masterpiece Arpege together with Paul_Vacher and Paul Fraysse, two perfume makers. And Armand Rateau designed the bottle. Paul Lribe
did the mother and daughter logo of the bottle. Arpege is inspired by the sound of her daughter practicing on the piano. Albert-Armand Rateau created her apartment at 16 rue Barbet-de-Jouy, Paris, and two country houses. The living, boudoir and bathroom of the apartment were reassembled in 1985 in the MusĂŠe des Arts DĂŠcoratifs, Paris. He made in 1922 also the furniture in bronze. In the 1920/1930s the clear, light, floral colors became a Lanvin trademark. And was now one of the most influential designers of this time. In 7 July 1946 age 78 Jeanne Lanvin died and her daughter Marquerite took the company over. Marquerite shared the owner ship with her cousin, Yves Lanvin. But in 1958, Jeanne Lanvin died because she was childless. After that Yves Lanvin went the new director of Lanvin. After that there were several other directors and now Alber Elbaz, is the designer of Lanvin from Fall 2002 to Present.
Lanvin nowadays. Everybody can wear Lanvin, it’s a label that fits to everybody’s bodies and fits perfect to all kind of characters and personalities. In the summer runway show 2009 you saw a lot of zippers on the back, one shoulder dresses and all in one piece. Today, Lanvin designs are clothing and accessories for men and women, including ready-to-wear, shoes, bags and jewellery. Even Michelle Obama was wearing these shoes of Lanvin. Celebrities and models such as Linda Evangelista, Penelope Cruz, Natalie Portman, Katie Holmes, Charlize Theron, Kate moss, Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Hudson are wearing Lanvin. When Alber Elbaz started at Lanvin he introduced new packaging for the fashion house, featuring a forgetme-not flower color. Alber says: I remember a woman telling me that every time she wore a Lanvin dress, men wanted to sleep with her," Also he said: When I work, I always think about the women that I know, the women that I want to know, and the people that I love. I'm very romantic and, if we open a dictionary, romanticism is a desire to go back to the past.
Alber Elbaz is from Morocco and born at 1961, at age 10 he immigrated with his family to Israel. He studied at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan. In 1987 he moved to New York to work for several fashion companies. In 1998 he started designing for Yves Saint Laurent. After 3 collections Tom Ford dismissed Alber so in 2001 he started at Lanvin. Some people like Lanvin and some don’t, people say about Lanvin that it’s as a sophisticated brand, but a brand that dear to take challenges and go in a direction that takes Lanvin a bit away from the classical sophisticated image. They make clothes for women who are important, at least they try. Men love the sneakers of Lanvin because they are so normal but also so different. Lanvin is a brand that is classic and creative and it’s fits to all different kind of personalities and body measures. Lanvin is a big inspiration for a lot of other designers and did a lot to the fashion world. It’s a brand that gives us power to show us women.