AnOther – 11 mars 2016<\/p>\n
The Anarchic Revolution at Comme des Gar\u00e7ons<\/p>\n
Susannah Frankel considers the creative motivations behind Rei Kawakubo’s magnificently evocative new collection<\/p>\n
Text Susannah Frankel Photography Polly Brown Photographic Editor Holly Hay<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Eighteenth century punk,\u00a0\u00bb was the phrase given up by Rei Kawakubo to explain her extraordinary Autumn\/Winter 2016 collection for Comme des Gar\u00e7ons last weekend in Paris. If it seems somewhat contradictory in intention \u2013 and it would certainly not be the first time this great creator chose to do that \u2013 then first impressions may be misleading. After all, the 18th century, in France in particular but elsewhere also, was a revolutionary era. As far as dress in the Directoire period was concerned, the principally aristocratic Les Incroyables and their female counterparts Les Merveilleuses wore clothing that was intentionally and powerfully provocative in its decadence, flying in the face of the politically correct in favour of dressing to impress an inner circle and outrage anyone outside of it. Sounds familiar? Comme des Gar\u00e7ons has always been interested in \u2013 and subverted \u2013 notions of status in designer clothing. It is surely no coincidence, then, that with fashion (and the world in general) struggling both economically and creatively to recover its composure, this was the reference cited by the powers that be at the label, treated, as always, in an oblique and anarchic way. Kawakubo insists that she operates solely on an instinctive level and that her search is an endless one for the shock of the new but her instincts, albeit subconsciously, are very sensitively aligned to the zeitgeist. That only adds to her influence. Whatever the motivation behind it, this revolutionary fashion force continues to express herself in a manner that leaves others in the shade.<\/p>\n
Ready to wear?
\nWhile Rei Kawakubo formerly took great pride in the fact that everything she puts on the runway is available in store \u2013 and indeed, that continues to be the case today \u2013 for the past three years she has reduced the looks in her biannual Comme des Gar\u00e7ons womenswear presentation to the most extreme while, in the showroom, the more obviously commercial pieces that will soon fill her stores are available for buyers and press to view at their leisure. This, in essence, has more in common with an haute couture business model than with ready-to-wear, in as much as her catwalk functions as the pure \u2018parfum\u2019 from which everything else \u2013 eau de parfum, eau de toilette and so forth \u2013 springs. The show pieces in question were as magnificent as ever, drawing on archive clothing and furnishing fabrics reinvented in a brilliantly imaginative and evocative way and transformed into increasingly overblown structures more reminiscent of sculpture than clothing.
\nThe Comme des Gar\u00e7ons signatures were firmly in place: plump coils, huge ruffles, petals, ribbons, bows and a cute CdG take on the pannier all built up into larger-than-life-size constructions that only the fashionably courageous and most Comme des Gar\u00e7ons committed are ever likely to wear. They will look sensational. Those who do choose to invest in these very special designs will also rest safe in the knowledge that their five-figure price tag not only ensures extremely limited production but also serves as an investment. More than a few will doubtless end up as museum pieces. Deservedly so. They are among the most inventive \u2013 if not the most inventive \u2013 of our time.<\/p>\n
The Finer Fabrics\u2028
\nFamously, Kawakubo tends to favour synthetics, quite the finest synthetics in the world. This time, however, she worked predominantly in fine silks and velvets although \u2013 more obviously in line with the punk side of the equation \u2013 opted for pale pink and true red PVC. Pink \u2013 the feminine fashion clich\u00e9 of choice \u2013 and red \u2013 once cited by the designer as \u2018black\u2019, as in the new black \u2013 are both integral to her design process. Otherwise, floral brocades were the order of this particular day, painstakingly sourced and created by four Italian fabric makers, three French fabric makers and one Swiss fabric maker. There were 27 fabrics in total and the result was as colourful and uplifting a patchwork of blooms as has been for some time or perhaps ever here. And that\u2019s quite something coming from a woman who has long upheld black as the non-colour of choice. Again, such rich pickings are traditionally the staples of the haute couture ateliers, although there was nothing even remotely traditional about the way they were treated.<\/p>\n
From Top to Toe
\n\u2028If the clothing was rainbow hued, the make-up was pale and the hair black. Longtime Comme des Gar\u00e7ons collaborator Julien D\u2019Ys, responsible for the latter, was given just \u00ab\u00a0Eighteenth century punk\u00a0\u00bb to work with and the end result was the type of sky-high, studiously un-natural design favoured by the eighteenth century upper classes to denote influence, wealth and power. For Comme des Gar\u00e7ons, wigs, while towering, were witty, pretty and abstracted to ensure a never overly literal pastiche. As for the shoes… Kawakubo has always preferred her footwear flat, of a sort which, however idiosyncratic, any wearer can run in. On this occasion, heavy white lace-up sneakers worn with wrinkled ankle socks were embellished with also white or pastel-coloured fluff bearing more than a passing resemblance to candy floss. Sweet.<\/p>\n
A \u00ab\u00a0Happy Classical\u00a0\u00bb Soundtrack
\n\u2028The very clever show soundtrack specialist Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Sanchez\u00a0is responsible for the music at Comme des Gar\u00e7ons, and he too is given nothing more than the odd word as guidance only days before the show takes place. In this instance, Rei Kawakubo told him: \u00ab\u00a0happy classical\u00a0\u00bb. There is surely no more bright and breezy example of that than Tchaikovsky\u2019s The Nutcracker Suite. Spliced into short, sharp excerpts it was a perfectly bizarre accompaniment to these monumental exits. Perhaps inevitably, The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy brought the biggest smile to the lips of those in attendance. Because these were far from the average Sugar Plum Fairies it has to be said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AnOther – 11 mars 2016 The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fs-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}