Elizabeth Dee – the creative director and founder of Independent art fair – grew up in rural Midwest flipping through pages of fashion magazines. ‘I knew about Comme des Garçons before I first heard of Donald Judd,’ she tells Wallpaper*. The 17th edition of Dee’s industry-favourite fair, which is also its largest to date with 76 international galleries, pays homage to her first foray into the creative world with a display of 20 Comme des Garçons dresses from the last decade.
Exhibited within a scaffolding of metal bars designed by Rei Kawakubo, the presentation follows the format of a runway show with a long stretch of garments positioned on both sides. Dee, however, notes that the design flips the dynamic between the subject and the viewer by ushering visitors to walk along the runway while outfits fill in the shoes of the audience.
The installation greets the fairgoers right after passing through a medley of thick yellow rubber strips, which stand out as part of D_P_S (Diogo Passarinho Studio)’s overall vision for the fair design. Sculptural and performative, the dresses have been selected by the brand’s CEO Adrian Joffe and Dee out of the fashion house’s last ten years. They overall offer the New York crowd to catch up with Kawakubo’s vision for the first time since The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s seminal exhibition ‘Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between’ in 2017.
A black and white ensemble from the Parisian house’s A/W 2020 collection places the body into a drop-like form in a colour palette reminiscent of the Pagliacci character in the traditional Italian opera. In another piece from last year’s Sping/Summer collection, bulbous forms in varying sizes feature red splashes and wrap the body like a ruby-hued explosion. A S/S 2024 dress is emblazoned with portraits from Rococo paintings with bright blue bows on both sides.
The boundary-pushing 57-year-old Japanese fashion house, which still remains synonymous with the avant-garde, is a fitting collaborator for Independent with its similarly trend-setting outlook. The fair is often considered a platform to explore the current state of the art industry through cutting-edge artists with growing institutional recognition. A self-described ‘not a big art fair fan’, Dee states her exact disinterest in the typical fair format in her decision to launch her own platform where ‘gaps could be filled’. With stands largely displaying solo artist presentations and an attention to balance blue chip visibility with new exposures, the fair’s aura is what the founder compares to Kawakubo’s other venture, Dover Street Market.
‘If Independent could be the Dover Street Market for art fairs, that would be a huge success,’ she says, and adds that she believes in an ‘innovative forward-thinking vision, not just trying to date-stamp where things are today’. The collaboration also follows Comme des Garçons’s recent partnership with Dia Art Foundation and New York sculptor Meg Webster for a pyramid-shaped glass perfume bottle.
Independent runs in New York’s Pier 36, 299 South Street until May 17, 2026.