In the late 1970s, Japanese designers drew the attention of the Western media for their ingenuity and artistry. Notable examples include the early work of pioneering couturier Hanae Mori, who was admitted to the prestigious Paris Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in 1977 and known for her multicultural and contemporary aesthetic that drew rom the dressmaking traditions of both Japan and Europe; the vibrant eclecticism of Kenzo Takada, who opened his Jungle Jap store in Paris in 1970; and Issey Miyake’s first runway presentation in Paris in 1973.
In April 1981, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto presented their collections in Paris for the first time. The pair rebelled against fashion norms and limiting beauty standards with asymmetrical, formless and distressed black garments achieved through textile innovation and experimental pattern-cutting. Their distinctive aesthetic elicited disparaging comments from some European journalists terming it ‘anti-fashion’, while others praised their work as revolutionary, admiring its ‘newness, inventiveness and elegance’. On display are works donated by Takamasa Takahashi, David Tune and Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM from the designers’ early collections that showcase Kawakubo and Yamamoto’s intellectual and introspective curiosity.
In 1988, Miyake and his team began experimenting with pleated polyester cut and sewn garments. By 1993 his revolutionary Pleats Please range explored the relationship between two and three dimensions using flat, geometrical pattern-cutting, narrow linear pleating, colour blocking and irregular placement of openings for the head and arms.
On display are two of his most iconic designs: Flying saucer dress (spring-summer 1994), an homage to Japanese American artist and furniture designer Isamu Noguchi’s Akari light sculptures, and Starfish dress (autumn–winter 1999–2000), which mimics the fluidity of water and marine life.
Design processes such as this revolutionised garment construction, as did dissecting traditional Western tailoring methods in favour of wrapping, layering and knotting. For Kawakubo and Yamamoto, innovations in patternmaking and textile treatments are understood to have emerged from Japanese concepts such as ma (negative space), wabi-sabi (a respect for simplicity, irregularity and imperfection), origami and kimono-derived flat-pieced construction that abstracts, rather than adheres to, the body.
During the 1990s, their interrogation of the structural elements of clothing became known as ‘deconstruction’. By turning garments inside out, reconfiguring pattern pieces, leaving seams unfinished and exposed linings, they dismantled dress conventions in the pursuit of new and hybrid forms.
A particular work in the display, Coat, coat and skirt from Kawakubo’s Fusion collection, (autumn–winter 1998–99), she collaged different garment forms, fused and mismatched fabrics, turned linings into exteriors and displaced fastenings. As much about construction as deconstruction, the collection exposed components of clothes that are normally hidden, while retaining traces of the tailoring process. In doing so, Kawakubo queried the value of things that are unfinished.
In the same decade, Yohji Yamamoto deconstructed historical silhouettes, reformulating them as contemporary dress. His collections of this period are mostly defined by his reimagining of nineteenth-century underpinnings such as outerwear while rejecting gender binaries. Yamamoto’s most recognisable silhouettes of this period were inspired by Victorian bustles and Edwardian (1900–10) draped dresses. Bustle coat (Black collection, autumn–winter 1995–96, purchased NGV Supporters of Fashion and Textiles and NGV Foundation, 2020), playfully imitates a Victorian ‘visite’ coat. Presented on the runway without its tulle bustle, the garment was later featured in the 1986 Nick Knight editorial image, The Red Bustle, that emphasised Yamamoto’s subversive exploration of the coat as a garment typology.
The 1990s also saw the emergence of a third generation of designers, supported by Kawakubo under the Comme des Garçons umbrella who quickly garnered critical acclaim for their distinctive approaches to fabric and form. Designers such as Junya Watanabe, Tao Kurihara and Noir Kei Ninomiya became known for their conceptual and technical mastery; Watanabe for his hybrid fabrications and technological textiles, Kurihara for her poetic minimalism and abstracted femininity, and Ninomiya for his artisanal fabric manipulation and dramatic architectural designs. A key theme in Watanabe’s work is his interest in utilitarian garments such as military uniforms and workwear, through which he blurs categorical boundaries of dress. Playing with established uniforms such as the Chanel suit or sportswear, he enmeshes
luxury and athleticism within contemporary streetwear.
On display, Look 42, dress from Watanabe’s Anti, Anarchy and Army collection (autumn–winter 2006–7), highlights the ongoing influence of military dress in the designer’s work. The collection saw the designer rework military jackets as panels, trims, dresses, trenchcoats and parkas in a predominantly khaki palette of heavy cotton drills, boiled wools and lace, each fabric collaged as a metaphor for camouflage.
Core to the practice of many contemporary Japanese designers is an exploration of the relationship between body and garment. Designers challenge the parameters of the wear through exaggerated or padded silhouettes, by encasing or enveloping the body. This lateral and conceptual approach to fashion is a refusal to see the physical body as a limitation. Such interventions resist commodification and objectification, instead presenting the body as a site of liberation and provocation.
Throughout her career, Kawakubo has questioned the boundaries of the so-called ‘fashionable body’. Her 2019 spring–summer collection marked the end of her ten-season conceptual endeavour to ‘not make clothes’, signalling the beginning of a new design phase. Her most recent work in the display, Look 2, Cape and dress, from the Return to the Source collection (autumn–winter 2023) donated by the fashion house in 2025, shows the way in which Kawakubo tackles themes of restraint, restriction and psychological conditioning. The outfit encapsulates the ways in which she disrupts dress conventions through proportion and deconstructionism. She has become known for setting herself and her team technical challenges or restraints; for example, not allowing any stitching or constructing entire garments from a single, repeated pattern piece.This new display showcases the work of key figures whose avant-garde visions have fundamentally reshaped how we engage with and understand fashion.
Charlotte Botica is NGV Assistant Curator, Fashion and Textiles.
The NGV warmly thanks Takamasa Takahashi, David Tune, Sharon and Gregory Paton and Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, and others, for their support of the works featured in this story.
This essay was first published in NGV Magazine | Issue 58 May–Jun 2026.