Hiroshima's Bag Lady Increasing the Parameters of the Real

What is considered ugly, grotesque or unpleasant by the fashion world? The first collection presented by Rei Kawakubo in Paris was classified as offensive to Western aesthetic standards, for it questioned the French ideal of beauty and elegance. Through silhouettes covered in frayed, perforated and monochromatic fabrics, Kawakubo disrupted the established notion of the beautiful body, stripping it of the cliches of femininity, explicit sexuality and glamour. Under the lens of Vilem Flusser's philosophy, the Japanese fashion designer created the new, the beautiful, that which is capable of expanding the parameters of the real. | Keywords: Fashion, Beauty, Deconstruction, Vilem Flusser, Rei Kawakubo