Long Nguyen

Once again, Rei Kawakubo forces us to question what clothes can be.

It's no wonder the Metropolitan Museum of Art chose her.

Nicolas Ghesquière played with experimental cuts and high-tech fabrics once again this season.

The visionary designer used exaggerated pieces to comment on how clothing is related to the human condition — from birth to death.

The former Valentino designer incorporated fencing jackets, streetwear-esque logos and feminist messaging into her debut collection for the house.

But the designer's first collection was missing a central aesthetic to tie everything together.

The designer's friends and muses gathered in New York for the debut of his fall 2016 collection — which is available to shop right now.

A final dispatch from the shows, including Maison Margiela, Alexandre Vauthier, Guo Pei and more.

Ornamentation was kept to a minimum, with beading only showing up on a handful of dresses and leather biker jackets.

The backroom "petits mains" took center stage in Paris.

The atelier showed easy pieces that seemed to float on the models' bodies.

A dispatch from the spring 2017 runways at Balenciaga, Rick Owens, Thom Browne and more.

The upcoming Brexit vote popped up on the runways, too.

A successful translation of a fashion house's heritage by a new designer is a rare and difficult feat, but Gvasalia rose to the occasion.

Rei Kawakubo was inspired by punk and 18th-century silhouettes for fall 2016.

While other designers in Paris focus on "likes," Rei Kawakubo continues to move the conversation about fashion and the design process forward.

Set against the backdrop of Pierre Cardin's "Bubble Palace" in France, the designer showed his 2016 resort collection.

Fashion's use as dialogue may be waning, but in the hands of designer Rei Kawakubo, it still has enormous power.