Rei Kawakubo makes clothes “that didn’t exist before.” With her company Comme des Garçons, she defied fashion conventions, and approached the creation of clothing as a conceptual statement, a cultural commentary, and a postmodern art that explores body and history, form and function, and, finally, beauty. Tracing Kawakubo’s evolution since her first Paris presentation in 1981, this exhibition includes more than 50 examples drawn from the museum’s impressive holdings. —E.C.