From The Wall Street Journal
How Comme des Garçons Looks Go From Wacky to Wearable
The Japanese label cleverly translates its runway statements into clothes you can actually wear. Here, five before-and-after transformations.
This commercial dress stays true to the spirit of the original’s armor-like panels and shapes, crafted from strips of stiff floral fabric hammered together with silver hardware. Photo: Andres Oyuela for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Rebecca Malinsky, Hair by Peter Matteliano, Makeup by Victor Noble, Model: Lois Schindeler/Wilhelmina
By
Maya Singer
April 27, 2017 11:47 a.m. ET
STRAPPING SPECIMEN | The label is known for imbuing wearable tailoring with a touch of concept, as seen in this blazer’s crisscross straps (right), a distillation of a cocooning coat (left) from the spring 2016 collection. Andres Oyuela for The Wall Street Journal
A FAIR QUESTION from anyone first encountering a Comme des Garçons collection:
How on earth do you wear that? Of all the ready-to-wear runway extravaganzas that take place in Paris four times a year, the assertively avant-garde shows staged by the label’s much-revered designer Rei Kawakubo are most likely to confound people inclined to think of fashion in terms of durable wardrobe staples.
And yet, Comme des Garçons—subject of the exhibition “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between,” which opens at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4—has a thriving retail business, with a highly varied coterie of dedicated fans.
Ikram Goldman, owner of the eponymous Chicago boutique, stocks everything from the brand’s conceptual pieces to items from its more commercially inclined subsidiary labels. The secret, she said, is that Ms. Kawakubo’s runway innovations are artfully translated into wearable clothes—a rather utilitarian uniform—before they reach stores.
This lets her achieve the quicksilver balance of art and commerce so many fashion brands seek. “That’s Rei’s genius as a businesswoman,” Ms. Goldman said. “She respects the uniform, but she keeps refreshing it with new details, new fabrics, new shapes, so it feels like ‘fashion.’ ” Ms. Kawakubo excels at tailoring staples—blazers, trousers and coats—all of which can take on the personality of a certain collection.
For longtime followers like Suzanne Golden, the brand’s clothes do serve as a uniform. Ms. Golden, a spry 70-something New Yorker, discovered Ms. Kawakubo’s label in the mid-90s—and never looked back. “There are themes she keeps coming back to, like the baggy pants,” she said. “That is why the clothes are so timeless.” Ms. Golden has amassed quite a Comme wardrobe, merrily mixing recent pieces with ones she’s owned for years.
Still, there is also a market for some of the startling runway ensembles the Met will display. Ms. Goldman used to order one look per season just to put in her shop window, expecting to keep it for her archive. “Invariably, someone would buy it,” she said. “It became a bone of contention, for me and my sales team. You can’t reorder those pieces! Now I just buy two.”
YES PLEATS | The hefty pilgrim-collar coat over a tiered pleated dress (left), shown in the spring 2017 collection which Ms. Kawakubo described as ’Invisible Clothes,’ begot a tropical- wool frock (right) that borrowed the original’s flanged silhouette and pleats. In one, you can even shoot hoops.
$2,182, Comme des Garçons, 212-604-9200 Andres Oyuela for The Wall Street Journal
SLIM, SHADED | On the spring 2017 runway, this garment with a Rorschach-esque print (left) looked like a dress that had been flattened and then grew matching wings. In stores, the print and a hint of the sculptural sensibility remained (right), while the wings flew away to reveal a fairly flattering shift.
$1,500, Comme des Garçons, 212-604-9200 Andres Oyuela for The Wall Street Journal
CAGE PERFORMER | Ms. Kawakubo told Vogue she set out to not make clothes for her spring 2014 show. And yet, pieces like this dominatrix-y frock (left) made the leap into the real world (right). The leather pinafore simply requires an underpinning like this Comme des Garçons Play T-shirt,
$100, Comme des Garçons, 212-604-9200. Andres Oyuela for The Wall Street Journal
