川久保玲谈及 COMME des GARÇONS 的历史和商业发展

「这一季衣服不是让少年当街头服穿著，而是对刻下男装简单、运动风与随便的批判。强调缝纫的这季衣服，就是要质问男装还有 Tailoring 可言吗？」

「做生意最重要是资金流动，我无时无刻强调资金独立，永不负债。」

「时装不为他人而穿，不为吸引或勾搭别人，它应该是你送给自己的礼物。」

「虽然我不信名气，但事实上这东西给我无人拒绝合作的能力。」

「我想把高级时装放在市集般的店卖，Dover Street Market 把各类风格时装放在开放式空间卖，催逼创意气氛。」

「初当形象指导时的目的是赚钱过活，独立，并发展成一门事业。但那时我找不到任何想穿的衣服呀。于是便动手设计。」

「我把首间店舖橱窗空置了，有别于其他店将当季衣服穿在假模特身上，确保路人一定看得见。我把所有衣服收在橱窗后，店内不设镜子，衣服是为身体设计，不是肉眼。」

「别人劝我的我偏要做。」

「我的作品由内而发，性别或炫耀等事毫无意义。」

对于首个 Fashion Show 并评为广岛原爆时尚，她说：

「虽然我从未挨饿，但永记当年极穷与绝望的心情，但这与我的作品毫无关系。评论完全捉错用神。生于日本是个意外，与我的设计全无关联，战后成长令我变成今日的我，成为时装设计师却是另一回事，这是相当个人的事，完全发自内心。」

2D Fashion Show 的设计灵感

「好似所有人都耗尽了，大家都被廉价 Fast Fashion 洗礼，毫不介意与别人穿得一式一样 。热情与渴望改革的宗旨都变淡了。」

15 FW 的设计灵感

「与战争政治无关，一切源自内心深处的恐惧，每个人都有的恐惧。好似至亲离开，接著举行分别仪式，好抒发伤感，令一切易过点。没有悲哀，就没有创意。」

有著「日本时尚教母」之称的川久保玲（Rei Kawakubo），自 1969 年成为一名时装设计师，并于 1973 年成立举世闻名的 COMME des GARÇONS 之后，不仅将自己独到又极富感念性的审美理念传递到全世界，也向世界展示了一种革命性的新型穿衣方式。之后她的设计得到越来越多人的赏识，包括 Karl Lagerfeld, Nicolas Ghesquière 和 Marc Jacobs 在内都是她的忠实粉丝。

除了主线品牌 COMME des GARÇONS 的蓬勃发展之外，川久保玲开始针对不同消费群体拓展丰富的支线品牌，包括专营男装的 COMME des GARÇONS HOMME；主打衬衫设计的 COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT；以及凭借一颗「爱心」红遍全球的 COMME des GARÇONS PLAY 等等，并培养出渡边淳弥（Junya Watanabe）和丸龍文人（Fumito Ganryu）等得意门生，是帮助日本时尚走向国际舞台的主要推手之一。

当然，已经成为伦敦时尚地标的 Dover Street Market 零售店铺，也是川久保玲这十年来倾注最多心血的项目之一。除去自家品牌的全部系列之外，DSM 更吸纳了来自全球的精选品牌，不仅创造了一种主打艺术格调的高端购物体验，成为一种时尚文化和生活方式的象征，也在界线越来越模糊的时尚与街头之间架起一座桥梁。商业上的成功，让川久保玲将 DSM 的理念相继推广至东京和纽约，进一步确立了自己在时尚领域不可动摇的地位。

一向很少在媒体上露面的川久保玲最近在 2015 纽约时装周期间，接受了《The Guardian》的采访，分享 COMME des GARÇONS 的历史和商业发展，以及自己对于零售、女性主义、时尚发展，甚至是金融方面的观点，足以帮助大家了解一个更为真实的自己。下面便带来这篇专访的节选内容，感兴趣的朋友不妨点击这里阅读原文。

Rei Kawakubo’s designs have always been personal, driven by a sense of independence. Her father was a university administrator and her mother a teacher. After studying history of aesthetics at Keio University in the 60s, she left home and found work in the advertising department of textile manufacturer Ashai Kasei. The job included looking for props and costumes and eventually she started designing those she couldn’t find. She finally went freelance as a stylist and designer in 1967. “The very first thing I wanted to do when I started this was to make a living, be independent and have a job. But I could never find clothes that I wanted to wear, so I decided to make them myself.’

Without any formal fashion training, she launched Comme des Garçons in 1969, with the first boutique opening in Tokyo’s Minami-Aoyama district in 1973. From the beginning she had unorthodox ways of working. “I attempted a different approach to the typical clothing storefront, which was usually adorned with mannequins dressed in the latest collections for everyone to see, clothes on view for the masses to lust over. The front display windows of the first boutique in Aoyama were often kept vacant while the clothes remained in the back room of the shop. I would make the clothes, bring them to the boutique and interact with clients daily. There were no mirrors in the boutique to emphasise the notion that one should buy clothes because of how they make you feel, not how they make you look.”

Kawakubo has said that she just likes the sound of the words that make her company’s name, but the spirit of “like boys” chimed with women’s liberation in the 60s and 70s, and her designs have always challenged traditional ideas of femininity. “I’ve always been against people who told me what to do,” she says. She identified with the punk movement in London in the late 70s and visited the city twice in the early 80s. When she first showed in Paris in 1981, fashion was dominated by the high glamour of Gianni Versace and Thierry Mugler. Dynasty and Falcon Crest debuted on American TV that year and Human League was the bestselling band in the UK. This was the world into which Kawakubo sent that first collection of black, shapeless garments with asymmetric hems, odd flaps, laddered knits and shredded fabric. It was a signature style that had earned her fans at home the nickname Karasu – “the crows” – by the Japanese press. “I built my work from within instead of satisfying a demand for sexualised and ostentatious clothing,” she says.

But the collection was dismissed by critics as “ragged chic”. It was also attacked on a political level, labelled “Hiroshima chic” or “post atomic”. Kawakubo says her work was misunderstood. “Although I never went hungry I remember well the extreme poverty and devastation of those times. But this had no bearing on my work whatsoever. These critics had it all wrong. Being born in Japan was an accident. There is no direct correlation to my work. Growing up in postwar Japan has made me the person I am, but it is not why I do the work I do. It is a very personal thing – everything comes from inside.”