Kawakubo believes that beautiful clothes do not need to be pretty. She creates distressed, broken, missaligned shapes expressive of anarchy.  Challenging our complacency, she attacks, one by one, the manifestations of good grooming that simulate incorruptibility. Sweaters with holes, padded distorted garments and mismatched fabrics suggest that beauty may not necessarily reside in the places our culture believes. Kawakubo's adventurous and cerebral approach to clothing can be disturbing to eyes trained in the western tradition to see beauty in classical harmony and completeness. 

The eastern viewpoint is different. In Japan the search for shibusa, ultimate beauty, embraces imperfection as a measure of perfection in creative endeavors. Torn or broken shapes in nature inspire a special affection. A rusted iron kettle, lichens on rocks or fallen blossom have sabi, the mark of wear and tear left randomly by time on objects. The reverent contemplation of sabi evokes wabi, a humble, melancholic repose. Wabi is permeated with the sad recognition that with the achievement of perfection comes the beginning of decline and decay. 

The love of the worn and ragged contained in sabi and wabi inform Kawakubo's world. Her work introduces Japanese concepts unfamiliar to European aesthetics. In the west, this approach has been labeled "deconstructive" because it parallels a trend in intellectual discourse that has surfaced in last few decades. Kawakubo takes clothing apart to renew it.  With boldness and an inquisitive eye, she continues her quest to dismantle the tyrannical rules of fashion and to unleash the imagination.