Rei Kawakubo started her fashion brand Comme des Garçons 50 years ago as a way to create clothes that she—then, a restless stylist—had never seen before. That desire has since been her driving force and cross to bear. At 76, she is still the first to arrive at her Tokyo studio and the last to leave, “painfully,” as she has repeatedly described her design process, turning out immensely radical clothing. If you can even call it that. For ten seasons, beginning with her “Not Making Clothes” runway show for Spring 2014, she flipped conventional thinking completely on its head, showing purely abstract forms that were wholly independent from the human body. Describing them was an art in itself: “Many of her pieces lack sleeves, waistlines, necklines, or even fabric,” wrote The New York Times . “Monstrous shapes—literally, largely knitted monstrosities—enveloping the models with their oversize frames, knitted cages, and multiple arms,” offered Vogue .

Rei Kawakubo.

In an industry where marketability has become of prime importance, her distorted and outsize architectural anomalies have continued to astound and confound, and, in the end, sell extremely well, establishing her as arguably the most important fashion designer today. And she occupies a place of honor in the world of art and design, as well.

The Noguchi Museum in New York.

Adding to her numerous accolades, this week, she will receive the 2019 Isamu Noguchi Award from The Noguchi Museum in New York, which is given to individuals who share the Japanese-American artist’s spirit of innovation, global consciousness, and commitment to East-West cultural exchange. After all, well before Kawakubo broke the mold with her wild ideas and biomorphic forms, there was Noguchi, whose organic, abstract work transcended the boundaries of art, design, theater, and architecture. Aside from the large stone sculptures that capped off his career, there are his series of Akari Light Sculptures—lanterns handcrafted from shoji paper—that are considered icons of modern design; his visionary set designs for dancers/choreographers Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and George Balanchine that explored his notion of “the sculpture of spaces”; and his revered public landscapes, including the UNESCO Garden in Paris and the Sunken Garden for Chase Bank in New York City.

The façade of Comme des Garçons boutique on West 22nd Street in Manhattan.

In a written exchange, Kawakubo, who is notoriously aloof, and inclined to give answers to interviewers that are as enigmatic as her creations, admitted she was familiar with some of Noguchi’s work, but not so much that it directly inspired her own. “I don’t know very well how he thought and created his art,” she comments. Nonetheless, she spent her career, much like Noguchi, “challenging the idea that design and art are inherently different endeavors,” according to those at The Noguchi Museum. Of course, Kawakubo is not one to easily accept such praise or accolades. “I am not an artist,” she adds. “But I think this award means that my daily work of making a business out of the pursuit of creating new things, and always looking for things that have never existed, has been recognized.” Indeed, it has.