Comme des Garçons No.1 Chair
Manufactured by Comme des Garçons
Japan, 1983
Steel

Measurements
52 x 53 x 65h cm
20,5 x 20,8 x 25,6h in

Provenance
Private collection, Japan

Edition
Red Kawakubo designed furniture exclusively for the Comme des Garçons stores from 1983 to the early 1990s. They were produced in limited quantities and often as unique works.

About
Designed by Rei Kawakubo in 1983, Chair No.1 represents one of the few excursions into furniture design by the influential founder of Comme des Garçons. Emerging from the same conceptual rigor that defined her early fashion collections, the chair was part of a short-lived yet visionary project: Comme des Garçons Furniture. Channeling Kawakubo’s radical spirit, the series blurred the line between functional object and sculptural statement.
The chair stands as a radical testament to Kawakubo’s early experimentation beyond fashion. Created during the initial and only full-fledged launch of Comme des Garçons Furniture, Chair No.1 embodies her singular approach to form—eschewing comfort in favor of conceptual rigor. Its half-moon backrest and exposed welded frame suggest a structural honesty rarely seen in domestic objects, while the open-grid seat recalls factory components more than interior furnishings. As one of the few surviving original 1983 models, this chair is not merely collectible—it is an artifact from a moment when Kawakubo expanded the boundaries of what design could be, uniting fashion, architecture, and sculpture in a single uncompromising gesture.

Biography
Rei Kawakubo (b.1942, Tokyo) is a Japanese fashion designer and founder of Comme des Garçons, a label she established in Tokyo in 1969. Known for her deconstructivist approach, she has consistently challenged established norms of beauty, form, and gender in both fashion and visual culture. Kawakubo’s work has been described as anti-fashion, yet it has deeply influenced contemporary design and aesthetics.
Her creative practice extends beyond clothing. In the 1980s, she briefly ventured into furniture design, producing a limited collection of pieces that mirrored her fashion ideology—raw, minimalist, and unorthodox. While not widely commercialized, these designs have since become cult objects within both design and art circles. Kawakubo’s interdisciplinary influence was formally recognized in 2017 with a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute: Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between.