AVANT-GARDIST!

THE FOUNDER OF COMME DES GAR ONS AND HOTTER-THAN-HOT DOVER STREET MAR ET IS BEING FÊTED AT THE MET.

The founder of Comme des Garçons and hotter-than-hot Dover Street Market is being féted at The Met.

The hashtagging frenzy began well before the exhibition “Rei Kawakubo/comme des Garçons: Art of the In-between” even opened. Search #Metkawakubo and be prepared for a deluge of breathtaking images, most of them photographed in Paris at the preview of the show.

Set to open in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute on May 4, the exhibition celebrates the career of avant-garde Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo. The show explores—or rather, explodes—eight sets of binary categories that Kawakubo has addressed in her work: Fashion/anti-fashion, Design/ Not Design, Model/multiple, Then/now, High/low, Self/ Other, Object/subject, and Clothes/not Clothes.

Curator Andrew Bolton worked with Kawakubo to choose approximately 150 pieces ranging from the 1980s to the present. With a cult following of collectors and thousands of fans ready to be wowed, Comme des Garçons is again the hottest ticket of the season. Opens May 4 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave., 212-5357710; metmuseum.org

Body- conscious: Comme des Garçons’ Spring/ Summer 1997 show, called “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body,” used bulbous padding to question the very idea of silhouette.