The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has announced that the theme of the 2017 Met Gala, and the accompanying Costume Institute exhibition, will be the legendary Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo and her label Comme des Garçons. It will be the first time the Gala has chosen to focus on a living designer since Yves Saint Laurent in 1983.
“Rei Kawakubo is one of the most important and influential designers of the past forty years,” says Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton, Vogue reports. “By inviting us to rethink fashion as a site of constant creation, recreation, and hybridity, she has defined the aesthetics of our time.”
The exhibition will span the full Comme des Garçons archive, presenting 120 of Kawakubo’s womenswear designs, from her debut runway collection in 1981 to her most recent shows. The garments will be arranged by contrasting themes: East/West, Male/Female, and Past/Present, examining Kawakubo’s fascination with “in-betweenness.”
The Met Gala will take place, as is its tradition, on the first Monday in May — May 1, 2017 — and will be co-chaired by Anna Wintour, Katy Perry, and Pharrell Williams, with Kawakubo as honorary chair. The Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons exhibition will open to the public on Thursday, May 4.
Related: Rei of light — on fashion’s fascination with Rei Kawakubo
Credits
Text Charlotte Gush
Photography Danko Steiner
Fashion Director Alastair McKimm