#METKAWAKUBO hovers over all of us like an oversized, oblong-shaped Comme cloud and I’m ready for the deluge. The show will feature pieces from Rei Kawakubo’s personal archive and will be designed and displayed in a way that grants maximum access to the clothing. As we await the May 4 opening of the already-legendary Met expo “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between”, which we first discussed in November, we’ve got two recent Rei Kawakubo interviews to parse (they are few and far between, so dig in). These are five lessons the iconic creator handed out freely, though always reticently.

Be humble
If Kendrick didn’t drive the point home, imagine being the actual Rei Kawakubo, OG beacon of all that is forward-thinking in fashion today, and telling Vogue that you’re not doing anything special, really. “I am just working day-to-day with what I believe… just dealing with my work—just like everybody else. (…) Maybe after the Met I won’t be able to make anything? Maybe the company will go down; I’m not sure”. She even doubts people will even show up to the expo, asking if the success of “Savage Beauty” wasn’t just due to people knowing Alexander McQueen better.

Success can equal failure
The way Rei Kawakubo looks at her own success, which is clear to anyone with a light interest in fashion, is very intense. She wonders if the fact that she has worked endlessly from dawn to midnight for the past 40 years isn’t actually a complete failure. Question classic notions of success, for your own wellbeing.

Skip the red carpet, go for the food
After first declining to even attend the entire ball that is being dedicated to her, Kawakubo agrees to go to the Met Gala dinner (but not the red carpet) when her husband insists

Art heals the pain, but it’s never finished
Being creative is a painful process for Rei Kawakubo and the pain is only lifted when she’s actually making something. Even then, she is never sure of anything she puts out. “There’s never a moment when I say, ‘OK, I’ve done it.’

Steve McQueen Is It
Current Fantastic Man cover star Steve McQueen is a phenomenon and happens to be a director Rei Kawakubo is a fan of. In case you were doubting how great he is, for some grotesque reason!

Each new grand Met expo is naturally paired with the official inaugural Met Gala, which is not so much star-studded as star-perforated. As for Monday’s Ball itself, these are our expectations:

– Kim KKW will probably serve body and hair so sleek a breeze couldn’t even hold on to it, rendering it completely immobile.
– Met Ball tradition requires an André Leon Talley taffeta cape moment and I won’t have it any other way!
– Donatella has already posted about her attendance, so if she doesn’t show up in H2T Atelier on Zayn’s arm, there are no certainties in life.
– I’m mostly hoping for a Solange appearance! We probably shouldn’t cross our fingers for Bey to drop by, but you know we’ll be staring at the red carpet 45 minutes after the last guest shuffled up the stairs, waiting for the holy trinity to arrive.

If nothing else, we all deserve a Rihanna carpet shutdown since that Guo Pei cape moment from 2015 was honestly enough of a reason to never host the ball ever again because when will anyone ever again?

Read the Rei Kawakubo Business of Fashion interview here.
Read the Rei Kawakubo Vogue interview here.

Images: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fantastic Man & Vogue