FROM THE MIDDLE GROUND COMES NEW OPPORTUNITY
An ordinary day in 2017 begins. As the Fitbit calculates sleeping patterns and the coffee pot hisses to life, twitter announcements and news feeds line up for review. The narratives are similar; people are choosing sides and as a culture we are falling into polarized zones. On one side we have “manspreading’; on the other we have “pussy hats”. We have evangelicals and extremists and orthodoxies. We are black and blue (lives matter). We have red states and blue states. We are being divided by gender, by religion, by race and region. The things that once united people are being disrupted by the activity at the edges, sucking the oxygen out of conversations looking for middle ground.
As a great sermon or a good show will often do, the Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum in New York City was a welcome distraction from the distractions, a chance to sit still and think about opposing viewpoints for a minute. The loose narrative about Rei Kawakubo was her seeking to understand and reconcile opposing forces in culture and her impulse to create from these edges. Her work rejoices in the intersection between opposites (male and female, self and other, adult and child), to mix ballerinas with motorcyclists, and to explore the relationship between clothing and one’s body. It celebrates those moments in the middle, the new “third space” that borrows from both extremes to create anew. From the middle ground, comes new opportunity and progress. Sounds like an idea to get behind.
This highlights some key themes we took away from this exhibit, with implications for brands and marketers drawn from these themes.
Regularly Redefine What Business You Are In
1. WHEN YOU CAN DISRUPT THE RULES OF THE GAME, YOU WILL OPEN UP NEW OPPORTUNITIES THAT DIDN’T PREVIOUSLY EXIST. Kawakubo’s work skirts commerce and culture, using fashion as an artist once used a paintbrush to provide commentary on cultural mores of the day. In this effort, she uses fashion to ask questions about the very nature of fashion itself....are clothes meant to serve the body, or is the body meant to serve the clothes? Her “Body Meets Dress-Dress Meets Body” collection explores this notion with body hugging and body amplifying dresses that blur the lines between these once rigid boundaries. In asking this question, Kawakubo opens the space for her work to live.
What Makes You Different Makes You Interesting...and It Might Even Make You Better.
2. YOU SHOULDN’T HIDE THAT WHICH MAKES YOU UNIQUE AND BEAUTIFUL. The 1970s and 1980s were those times when women were entering the workforce and vying for those same business opportunities that had been the almost-exclusive domain of men. Opportunities for women were no longer limited to being a nurse, a teacher or a secretary. As women made their entry into this world, they adopted not only the business demeanor of men, they adopted the male silhouette as well. The “power suit” with padded shoulders, and slim skirts disguised women’s forms and molded them into more masculine frames. Kawakubo explores a new kind of power dressing, but rather than using padding to create a male silhouette, she uses padding to exaggerate the female silhouette. While this new silhouette could seem overpowering or aggressive in its stance, this is mitigated by the pretty pastel gingham fabric choices that soothe and evoke nostalgic calmness.
Execution is Strategy.
3. IT IS AS IMPORTANT “HOW” YOU CREATE AS “WHAT” YOU MAKE. Historically, women’s clothing have been made up of wraps and drapes, whereas men’s clothing was tailored. In this series, Kawakuba explores gender identity through the different historical lenses of wrapping and tailoring. These pieces might be the original trans-gender attire as they are executed using both construction conventions associated with male and female clothing.
Popularity + Culture = Good Business
4. PREMIUM AND POPULAR ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Kawakuba blends elite premium cues with vulgar or crude popularist cues in her Motorbike Ballerina series. Tutus and leather jackets are combined for a street look that delights. In mixing high culture with low culture, Kawakuba describes this collection as “Harley-Davidson loves Margot Fonteyn”.
Position Your Brand at On-Ramps and Off-Ramps of Life: By Time of Day, By Season, By Lifestage
5. THERE IS GREAT BENEFIT AND VALUE IN HELPING PEOPLE THROUGH LIFE TRANSITIONS. The Ceremony of Separation collection represents the power of ceremony to easy transitions in life. Kawakuba notes “the beauty and power of ceremony can alleviate the pain of separating, for the one departing as well as for the one saying goodbye.” These clothes swaddle the body and communicate both reinforcement and fragility that accompany life and loss.
The exhibit is on until September 4, 2017.
References:
Metropolitan Museum “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-between”
Betsky, Aaron “Rei Kawakubo is an architect of Clothes” Dezeen, July 20, 2017
Fury Alexander, “Key Themes in Rei Kawakubo’s Career” Vogue, April 28, 2017
Granata, Francesca “The Alienating Garments of Rei Kawakubo” May 7, 2017