Beyond the in-between: Rei Kawakubo at The Met and the clash between eastern and western concepts in fashion studies

Abstract

Abstract The 2017 exhibition Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons – Art of the In-Between at the Metropolitan Museum in New York exposed the rich work of the iconic Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo to a larger western audience. As the title of the exhibition indicates, Kawakubo’s work does not fit well within some of the classic conceptual assumptions around fashion, but can be placed as something ‘in-between’. The show and printed museum guide were arranged around a series of conceptual dichotomies that Kawakubo’s work transgressed. Yet these transgressions also exposed the arbitrariness of central distinctions in fashion and questioned how universal key concepts in fashion really are. In examining the printed guide to the Kawakubo show, this text challenges the intercultural applicability of concepts such as ‘fetish’ and ‘copy’ across cultural spheres in fashion studies, and questions the universal application of such concepts to unpack meanings and practices in fashion.