Madness at the Met

TWISTS, KNOTS, curls and folds: the fantastical, boundary-pushing creations of legendary designer Rei Kawakubo explore the space where fashion ends and art begins.
The Japanese designer, who founded the esteemed Comme des Garcons fashion house in 1969, is being honoured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art with an exhibition featuring half a century of her creations.
It is the first monographic show at the museum’s Costume Institute dedicated to a living designer since Yves Saint Laurent, the French legend who put women in trousers and tuxedo jackets, in 1983.
The exhibition “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between,” which opens today and runs through September 4, displays more than 140 designs spanning the early 1980s to today.
A svelte and graceful figure, Kawakubo on Monday was the honoured guest and inspiration at the annual fashion gala held at the Met, wearing her signature blunt bangs and displaying her trademark sphinx-like reserve.
Barbadian superstar Rihanna wowed on the red carpet at the gala, the society fundraiser dubbed “the party of the year” that gathers the world’s most famous faces in film, fashion and music.

Officially organised each May to raise money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, under the stewardship of Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour the evening has transformed into one of New York’s most-watched fashion events.
Rihanna was dressed in a dress by Kawakubo, a floral, asymmetrical affair slashed at the thigh and covered in bold coloured discs layered like flower petals, paired with gladiator-style stilettos with red straps wrapped around her leg from ankle to thigh.
It was a return to Met stardom for Rihanna, who in 2015 stunned in a yellow velvet gown with an enormous fur-trimmed yellow and gold train created by Chinese designer Guo Pei.
Lady Gaga took to Twitter to hail Rihanna once again as the “best dressed,” saying the 29-year-old singer “captured the spirit of the night” and the “emotion of Kawakubo.”
But tributes to the notoriously difficult to wear designer were rare on the red carpet, with most celebrities opting for other A-list designers.
Singer Katy Perry wore a puffy red gown with a transparent face veil from John Galliano, who was sacked from Christian Dior in 2011 for an anti-Semitic rant in a Paris cafe.
Madonna opted for a camouflage dress from Moschino, while models of the moment Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner almost bared all – the former in a black mesh body suit from Alexander Wang and Jenner in slashed-at-the-chest-and-leg La Perla.
The 2016 gala raised around $13.5 million (Bt465 million) and tickets for this year’s edition were reportedly $30,000 a head. 
But money alone does not buy access: all guests have to be invited to attend, before chequebooks can come out.
Over the years, Wintour has raised around $150 million for the Costume Institute, which now bears her name.