Rex Butler is Professor of Art History at the School of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of the Reader's Guides to Deleuze and Guattari's 'What is Philosophy?' (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Borges' Short Stories (Bloomsbury, 2010), and, with David Denny, co-editor of Lars von Trier's Women (Bloomsbury, 2018).

The connective thread that runs between [the chapters] is that Kawakubo’s work reimagines, and demands that we reconsider, the very idea of fashion. It is this argument, and the breadth of scholarly perspectives included, that gives this book its value. While many of the essays are written by fashion scholars, others are by art historians, business and management scholars and curators. This multiplicity of viewpoints allows the book to speak to Kawakubo’s approach to retail design, exhibition and writing about her own work. ..[It] presents the opportunity for fresh takes on the decades long career of this exceptional designer. ... Overall, the book advances an argument for Kawakubo’s strength as an artist-designer who has entirely reimagined what clothes are, what fashion can be, and where creativity can take us.

• List of Illustrations1. Rex Butler (editor) ‘Introduction: For and against Fashion’2. Akiko Fukai ‘Couture Clash’ (excerpt)3. Barbara Vinken ‘The Empire Designs Back’ (excerpt)4. Karinna Nobbs and Kat Duffy ‘Rei Kawakubo as Retail Format Pioneer’5. Llewellyn Negrin ‘Rei Kawakubo: Agent Provocateur in a Hyper-Glamourised World’6. Yuniya Kawamura ‘Rei Kawakubo: Defiance Personified’7. Masafumi Monden ‘The Subversively Cute Side of Comme des Garçons: Rei Kawakubo and Romantic Transgression’8. Tets Kimura ‘Exploring the Theoretical Meaning of Rei Kawakubo: Two Waves of Arrivals of Japanese Fashion in the West and Georg Simmel’s Fashion Dualism’9. Karen de Perthuis ‘Performing the Idea of Clothes: Rei Kawakubo’s Fashion Manifesto’10. Ory Bartal ‘Rei Kawakubo and the Luxury of Freedom’11. Bronwyn Clark-Coolee ‘The Complexity of Kawakubo: A Radical Form of Consciousness’12. Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas ‘Between Clothing and Flesh: Kawakubo at the Met’13. Alison Gill ‘From Amidst the Betwixt and Between: The Gap between the Not-Worn and the Worn that is Opened Up by the Photographic Images in Rei Kawakubo’s Exhibition Catalogue’14. Rex Butler ‘Rei Kawakubo: Fashion Degree Zero’Bibliography Index

Rex Butler is Professor of Art History at the School of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of the Reader's Guides to Deleuze and Guattari's 'What is Philosophy?' (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Borges' Short Stories (Bloomsbury, 2010), and, with David Denny, co-editor of Lars von Trier's Women (Bloomsbury, 2018).

The connective thread that runs between [the chapters] is that Kawakubo’s work reimagines, and demands that we reconsider, the very idea of fashion. It is this argument, and the breadth of scholarly perspectives included, that gives this book its value. While many of the essays are written by fashion scholars, others are by art historians, business and management scholars and curators. This multiplicity of viewpoints allows the book to speak to Kawakubo’s approach to retail design, exhibition and writing about her own work. ..[It] presents the opportunity for fresh takes on the decades long career of this exceptional designer. ... Overall, the book advances an argument for Kawakubo’s strength as an artist-designer who has entirely reimagined what clothes are, what fashion can be, and where creativity can take us.

• List of Illustrations1. Rex Butler (editor) ‘Introduction: For and against Fashion’2. Akiko Fukai ‘Couture Clash’ (excerpt)3. Barbara Vinken ‘The Empire Designs Back’ (excerpt)4. Karinna Nobbs and Kat Duffy ‘Rei Kawakubo as Retail Format Pioneer’5. Llewellyn Negrin ‘Rei Kawakubo: Agent Provocateur in a Hyper-Glamourised World’6. Yuniya Kawamura ‘Rei Kawakubo: Defiance Personified’7. Masafumi Monden ‘The Subversively Cute Side of Comme des Garçons: Rei Kawakubo and Romantic Transgression’8. Tets Kimura ‘Exploring the Theoretical Meaning of Rei Kawakubo: Two Waves of Arrivals of Japanese Fashion in the West and Georg Simmel’s Fashion Dualism’9. Karen de Perthuis ‘Performing the Idea of Clothes: Rei Kawakubo’s Fashion Manifesto’10. Ory Bartal ‘Rei Kawakubo and the Luxury of Freedom’11. Bronwyn Clark-Coolee ‘The Complexity of Kawakubo: A Radical Form of Consciousness’12. Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas ‘Between Clothing and Flesh: Kawakubo at the Met’13. Alison Gill ‘From Amidst the Betwixt and Between: The Gap between the Not-Worn and the Worn that is Opened Up by the Photographic Images in Rei Kawakubo’s Exhibition Catalogue’14. Rex Butler ‘Rei Kawakubo: Fashion Degree Zero’Bibliography Index

Rex Butler is Professor of Art History at the School of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of the Reader's Guides to Deleuze and Guattari's 'What is Philosophy?' (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Borges' Short Stories (Bloomsbury, 2010), and, with David Denny, co-editor of Lars von Trier's Women (Bloomsbury, 2018).

The connective thread that runs between [the chapters] is that Kawakubo’s work reimagines, and demands that we reconsider, the very idea of fashion. It is this argument, and the breadth of scholarly perspectives included, that gives this book its value. While many of the essays are written by fashion scholars, others are by art historians, business and management scholars and curators. This multiplicity of viewpoints allows the book to speak to Kawakubo’s approach to retail design, exhibition and writing about her own work. ..[It] presents the opportunity for fresh takes on the decades long career of this exceptional designer. ... Overall, the book advances an argument for Kawakubo’s strength as an artist-designer who has entirely reimagined what clothes are, what fashion can be, and where creativity can take us.

• List of Illustrations1. Rex Butler (editor) ‘Introduction: For and against Fashion’2. Akiko Fukai ‘Couture Clash’ (excerpt)3. Barbara Vinken ‘The Empire Designs Back’ (excerpt)4. Karinna Nobbs and Kat Duffy ‘Rei Kawakubo as Retail Format Pioneer’5. Llewellyn Negrin ‘Rei Kawakubo: Agent Provocateur in a Hyper-Glamourised World’6. Yuniya Kawamura ‘Rei Kawakubo: Defiance Personified’7. Masafumi Monden ‘The Subversively Cute Side of Comme des Garçons: Rei Kawakubo and Romantic Transgression’8. Tets Kimura ‘Exploring the Theoretical Meaning of Rei Kawakubo: Two Waves of Arrivals of Japanese Fashion in the West and Georg Simmel’s Fashion Dualism’9. Karen de Perthuis ‘Performing the Idea of Clothes: Rei Kawakubo’s Fashion Manifesto’10. Ory Bartal ‘Rei Kawakubo and the Luxury of Freedom’11. Bronwyn Clark-Coolee ‘The Complexity of Kawakubo: A Radical Form of Consciousness’12. Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas ‘Between Clothing and Flesh: Kawakubo at the Met’13. Alison Gill ‘From Amidst the Betwixt and Between: The Gap between the Not-Worn and the Worn that is Opened Up by the Photographic Images in Rei Kawakubo’s Exhibition Catalogue’14. Rex Butler ‘Rei Kawakubo: Fashion Degree Zero’Bibliography Index