When Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto appeared on the Paris fashion scene in 1981, French haute couture had already begun to lose the central role it once held. Haute couture had traditionally been the institution that created new styles while also generating significant profits. However, by the 1970s it had become difficult for couture alone—produced for a small number of wealthy clients—to generate sufficient revenue. Many fashion houses therefore shifted to a structure in which profits were secured through licensed products such as perfumes, cosmetics, and accessories. As a result, the center of innovation in new silhouettes, colors, and designs gradually moved away from haute couture toward ready-to-wear.

This shift also transformed the very structure of struggle within the field of fashion. In the couture-centered fashion field analyzed by Pierre Bourdieu, new designers were positioned as challengers to the dominance of established couturiers. Yet in the 1970s the ready-to-wear industry expanded rapidly, and with the spread of hippie culture the idea of “anti-fashion” also began to permeate society. As a result, designers working in ready-to-wear themselves came to occupy dominant positions in the fashion field. In other words, by this period the locus of dominance had already shifted from haute couture to ready-to-wear.

In this context, a new current emerged in Paris in the mid-1970s. At a time when the folklore-inspired styles of Yves Saint Laurent and Kenzo Takada were dominant, designers such as Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler appeared and developed ready-to-wear collections that were sometimes described as a “new couture.” Their garments emphasized shoulders, waists, and hips with strongly constructed silhouettes that highlighted the female body, aiming to restore a sense of classic elegance and refinement. Karl Lagerfeld also created highly refined clothing for Chloé, presenting ready-to-wear collections that possessed a level of precision close to couture. In this way, even within ready-to-wear, a movement emerged that sought to restore couture-like elegance.

It was precisely at this moment that Kawakubo and Yamamoto appeared in Paris. Their clothes were completely different from the body-emphasizing, structured garments of Montana or Mugler. With voluminous and loose silhouettes, deep ink-like black, asymmetrically cut forms, sweaters with holes, and irregular hemlines, their clothing deliberately disrupted the conventional idea of the “finished garment.” Fabrics were wrapped, gathered, and layered, giving the impression of objects or artifacts rather than conventional fashion pieces. Their garments seemed less concerned with highlighting bodily beauty than with questioning the structure and very existence of clothing itself.

This opposition was not merely a difference in design but a struggle over the very principles of fashion. By around 1983, two distinct positions had clearly emerged in the Paris fashion world. On one side stood the “new couture,” represented by Montana, Mugler, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Azzedine Alaïa. On the other side stood the “anti-couture” position represented by Issey Miyake, Kawakubo, and Yamamoto. The former emphasized the curves and sexuality of the body while inheriting the tradition of French elegance, whereas the latter fundamentally questioned those very values.

Kawakubo’s collections in particular were received as a radical challenge to French ideas of fashion. She presented shapeless oversized black coat-dresses, asymmetrical jackets, and garments with displaced lapels and sleeves that appeared to dismantle the established structure of clothing. The models walked the runway with almost no makeup, wearing only blue color on their lower lips. The show was not simply a presentation of new garments; it was more like a stage that confronted the audience with the question: what is beauty?

Among all these elements, the use of black was especially shocking. In Western culture, black had long been understood as a color symbolizing mourning, death, and tragedy. Words such as “blacklist” and “black market” illustrate how negative meanings have often been attached to the color. For this reason, the ink-like black collections shown by Kawakubo and Yamamoto appeared dark and even threatening to many figures within the French fashion world.

Yet from the perspective of intellectual history, black has often symbolized resistance to bourgeois culture. It is well known that nineteenth-century dandies wore black, that postwar Parisian bohemians favored black sweaters and trousers, and that black was also widely used in the styles of beatniks and punks. In other words, black was not merely a color but also a symbol of critique directed toward existing social orders and aesthetic norms.

Yamamoto himself has spoken of his intention to fight against the idea of fashion as a device for displaying social status or wealth. For him, clothing was not something meant to exhibit wealth or beauty but rather a form of expression that could resist those very values. In this sense, their garments were not simply innovations in design but also a philosophical rebellion against bourgeois ideals of beauty.

Seen in this light, what occurred in Paris in the early 1980s was not merely a change in fashion trends. It was a moment when the traditional value of “couture” within French fashion culture collided directly with the emerging idea of “anti-couture” that sought to dismantle it. In that struggle, Japanese designers came to be recognized not simply as foreign designers but as radical figures capable of shaking the very foundations of the existing value system.

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