CDG Iconic Brown Paper Bag. The “plastified” Comme des Garçons tote was part of—and sold during—the 2017 Met Costume Institute exhibition Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In‑Between. The bag was a plastic-coated version of a paper bag, available in the exhibit’s gift shop. 👜 What was the rationale behind the plastified bag? 1. Tangible expression of the “in‑between” theme The exhibition explored dualities—Design / Not Design, Object/Subject, Clothes/Not Clothes—through Kawakubo’s lens. The plastified bag mirrors this by existing between ephemeral and durable: it looks like a crumpled paper bag (Design/Not Design), but it’s made sturdy and reusable thanks to the plastic coating . 2. Embracing wabi‑sabi and personal imprint Kawakubo often uses the Zen aesthetic of wabi‑sabi (beauty in imperfection and impermanence). According to a reviewer, the bags were meant to wrinkle and change with use, their CDG logo fading and becoming “illegible,” allowing the owner’s life to shape the bag. It becomes a personal artifact, embodying imbalance, warp, and the incomplete . 3. A wearable keepsake from the exhibition itself Functioning as a piece of museum merch, the bag allowed visitors to literally carry a fragment of the exhibit’s themes with them. It has some damage in the corners, it's all shown in the pictures.