Written by Nicole Štěch

Conceptually and artistically, the collection is today, nearly thirty years later, regarded as groundbreaking and iconic. Kawakubo, perhaps more an artist than a conventional designer, sent models down the runway clad in stretch polyester garments with padding strategically placed across various parts of their bodies. Hips, waist, shoulders, and backs were enveloped by oversized pads that acted like mysterious parasites, creating silhouettes that disregarded traditional human anatomy and extended far beyond the body’s natural boundaries. In her desire to free the viewer from the expectation that clothing should have clearly defined shapes and follow written rules, Kawakubo entered a new dimension of imagination. "What someone wears is an expression of oneself. When you're just comfortable with what you're wearing, you don't have new thoughts. I want people to feel something and think about who they are." She pushed the limits of how we perceive silhouettes, disrupted conventional perspectives of fashion and space, and rewrote everything we had known about the composition of the body. As she herself stated: "If I do something I think is new, it will be misunderstood, but if people like it, I will be disappointed because I haven't pushed them enough. The more people hate it, maybe the newer it is. Because the fundamental human problem is that people are afraid of change."

This shift, presented through Kawakubo’s lens, liberated fashion audiences from conformity. When something is revolutionary, it inevitably provokes divided opinions. Only with time and perspective can its value be fully appreciated. Today, Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body occupies a pedestal in fashion pop culture history, yet at the time it faced mixed critical and media reception. Near the end of the millennium, the press hailed the collection – also nicknamed the lumps and bumps collection – as innovative, interpreting it as a form of protest against established aesthetic norms, particularly through the system of padding that referenced bodies outside socially accepted standards. Others in the fashion industry compared the padding to tumors, possibly giving rise to the nickname lumps and bumps, while some even dubbed it Quasimodo or labeled it the ugliest collection of the year. The widespread use of gingham in the collection evoked associations with the traditional homemaker’s uniform and an almost infantilized femininity. Others, however, appreciated it – MoMu Antwerp notes that choreographer Merce Cunningham, who incorporated the collection into his iconic production Scenario, simply remarked: “The lumps are familiar shapes we see every day: a bike messenger with a bag over the shoulder, a tourist with a fanny pack, a baby in a mother’s arms.” And indeed, there is nothing unusual about that, is there? The collection, full of lumps and bumps, sparked controversy, which only reinforced Kawakubo’s aim to disrupt what was considered normal. She described the collection as an exercise in rethinking the human body: "You can tell if it’s a good collection if people are afraid of it. In ten years, everyone will love it." And exactly that happened with Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body.

Today, no fashion museum would be without an artifact from this collection in its holdings. I recall my first encounter with two of the pieces in 2019 while studying in Paris, at the Musée Bourdelle’s off-site exhibition Back Side – Fashion from Behind, drawing from the Palais Galliera collection, curated by Alexandre Samson. From my regular journeys through global fashion museums, I consider this intervention one of the most unforgettable. The lumps and bumps of the garments engaged in a playful dialogue with the sculptures of Antoine Bourdelle. Since then, I have encountered Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body many more times, in the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and most recently in Kyoto as part of the exhibition Love Fashion: In Search of Myself. And this love story is far from over. Note for collectors: pieces from the collection can still be found at auctions.

Kawakubo’s exercise in rethinking the human body materialized in garments made from red, blue, black, and gray gingham, translucent colored fabrics, and abstract motifs. What might have appeared disjointed carried a clear message: "I havealways pursued a new way of thinking about design…by denying established values, conventions, and what is generally accepted as the norm. And the modes of expression that have always been most important to me are: fusion… imbalance… unfinished… elimination… and absence of intent." She would never have called herself a feminist, yet in retrospect, her collection quietly expressed feminist ideas. Above all, she challenged socially accepted structures. In the fashion of the 1980s and 1990s, grotesque body forms proliferated as feminism questioned ideals of beauty and the concept of the “perfect” figure. Today, this collection can unquestionably be called iconic. It challenges our perception of the human body, remaining relevant in contemporary discussions of the idealized female body and the continued emphasis on conventionally sexualized areas. Kawakubo herself remarked: "When you put on clothes that are fighting against something, you can feel your courage grow. Clothing can set you free." She remains, in every sense, anything but conventional. Let us remember that.