• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.113-131
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• 2014

This study aims to examine the background to the rise of Rei Kawakubo, a Japanese designer who achieved fame by suggesting the concept of deconstruction and recombination of clothes, and to look at environment of the time, the formative characteristics of her design and the Japanese aesthetic sense inherent in her design. As the method of research, collections that Kawakubo unveiled over the past 10 years starting in 2004 were examined, and a survey of the literature was conducted to describe the background of her growth and the Japanese aesthetic sense inherent in the design. According to the study, Kawakubo grew up in the ruins of a war, and went through a time of great tumult, when Western culture was mixing with Japan's traditional culture. She taught herself a method of creation involving the deconstruction of clothes, and their recombination. For this reason, her design from the beginning was inevitably focused on deconstructing clothes before they could be recombined. Through analyses of her collections, it was found that the formative characteristics of her design were characterized by asymmetry, incompleteness, humor and hybridity. Kawakubo created clothes under the influence of an ethnicity that was shrouded in individuality and a traditional aesthetic sense, and the formative characteristics of her design defined by asymmetry, incompleteness, humor and hybridity were closely related to the hybridity represented by Wabi (わび), Yugen (幽玄), Okashi (をかし) and Zakyo (雜居).