Comme des Garçons S/S 2016 Paris

[gazebo]

Phuel, you have so many, too many, way too many designers that you can buy from if that's what you're looking for. It's not like all you can wear is CdG, so why cut Rei's wings also? I don't understand.

 

[Deleted member 138517]

This feels very old-fashioned. She knows how to do outrageous but this time she failed. This isn't interesting in terms of materials, shapes... And it's not visually appealing or intriguing. More of a mess.

im going to have to agree on this one. dont get me wrong, i LOVE rei and cdg and i like this collection but i feel like ive seen this before from her and i want to see more modernity

 

[Phuel]

Thanks Uemarasan for the link. I suppose it simply comes down to personal style and preference. I’m attracted to Comme when Rei presents a sensual, even sexual woman. I’m not attracted to these let’s-wear-giant-plushy-tentacles pieces with black tights and Keds that has a woman looking like a 5th-grade girl at her school play recital. And to be frank, I would have thought the woman in your link was wearing a child's school-theatre costume as a piece of Swiss cheese…

Phuel, you have so many, too many, way too many designers that you can buy from if that's what you're looking for. It's not like all you can wear is CdG, so why cut Rei's wings also? I don't understand.

Are you speaking figuratively? Seeing as I don’t buy or wear women’s clothes, I’m just being a critical poop in one sense, and want the most, and more from Rei. Look, she’s great and she’s everything (why do I always have to preface my posts with “she’s great, but…” LOL), and there’s no other designer who’s been around for over 40 years who’s still wields the kind of influence she does. Absolutely no one. I still remember the first CdG image I saw in one of my sister’s GQ magazine when I was 5 back in 1986. It thrilled, enthralled and completely overwhelmed me with its rather simple, subversive and dramatic sheer force of fashion iconography. I still have this ad page somewhere in my magazine collection. Rei and Comme is not any other designer to me, she and Comme are visionary, and I hold her to a higher standard than any other designer, down to the very typeface that’s chosen for a perfume bottle.

God knows there are way too many designers these days. Most will be gone soon, and even more I simply don’t care for— no matter how relevant they may be for the moment. Comme is more than just high fashion to me— it’s a design vision. From the presentations, to the campaigns, packaging and collateral, to the look and the world-building elements.

I don’t care too much for fashion, which is plentiful to the point of redundancy. I’m drawn to designers who have a vision, even one that may be irrelevant in this current fashion climate. You know, people complain this or that designer isn’t casting enough models of color, or this designer isn’t offering any relevant designs. Comme has always been consistent and true to what and how they want to present their designs— even if it may risk being politically-incorrect, or irrelevant to the current state of fashion. There aren’t many designers like this around. That’s why she’s important to me. And you’re most critical— and hardest on those that you care most about.

That, and you know— I do want Mullet to be wearing the very best of Comme when I feed her dinner LOOOL

“She can’t sit and she can’t reach her mouth— she's wearing a totally important designer…”

 

[runner]

clothing as an extension of our body, this is what the SS97 was about. it gave us a new look.
these days maybe she has been thinking of something like housing as a further extension of our skin, something that provides a new outlook.
sometimes rei is the mcluhan of fashion.


nowfashion

 

[Uemarasan]

Thanks Uemarasan for the link. I suppose it simply comes down to personal style and preference. I’m attracted to Comme when Rei presents a sensual, even sexual woman. I’m not attracted to these let’s-wear-giant-plushy-tentacles pieces with black tights and Keds that has a woman looking like a 5th-grade girl at her school play recital. And to be frank, I would have thought the woman in your link was wearing a child's school-theatre costume as a piece of Swiss cheese...

I actually wouldn't put that interpretation past Kawakubo. She has a very deadpan, dry sense of humor. Although that piece is from the collection I least like in this current period. Monster and the ceremony of separation are probably my favorites, since they ensconced emotion so well. I'm still waiting for the video for this one to make a final verdict. But the point is that there are people who will actually wear this as clothing...

Also, please post selfies of your feeding Mullet. It would go so very well with the bird connotations in this collection, as mentioned by Not Plain Jane. You know, mama bird feeding her helpless young and all that. Now that's how much a visionary Kawakubo is: she sees your future. Or even write it for you

 

[MulletProof]

you guys really made me into some sort of turkey!

I don't know how things work for other people, I often think most people would look better just naked , but no time for modesty: I'd rock that blue cape. That's the best part of the collection. I still wouldn't be able to eat but who's eating when you're making new friends in LA with something like that 'oh ew-wow what's THAT! where do you work?! who do you know?!'.

As for the girl in Harajuku, pretty sure looking petrified and unsure of how she ended up in that is a thing too, but I actually think that piece is pretty versatile (not being sarcastic), it can go in several ways and fyi, that's still sexual, abstract but still.

 

[Phuel]

^^^ #FeedingMulletproof will be trending come S/S2016...

I actually wouldn't put that interpretation past Kawakubo. She has a very deadpan, dry sense of humor. Although that piece is from the collection I least like in this current period. Monster and the ceremony of separation are probably my favorites, since they ensconced emotion so well. I'm still waiting for the video for this one to make a final verdict. But the point is that there are people who will actually wear this as clothing...

Also, please post selfies of your feeding Mullet. It would go so very well with the bird connotations in this collection, as mentioned by Not Plain Jane. You know, mama bird feeding her helpless young and all that. Now that's how much a visionary Kawakubo is: she sees your future. Or even write it for you

Absolutely: Rei definitely is punking the industry from time to time, I’ve come to expect that from her, but women as cutesy girls just doesn’t work for me.

When she's on it for me, she can conjure imagery that’s so unsettling, uncomfortable, and intimating— like the one runner posted. I remember when I was very little, like two or three, my dad took me to a Japanese opera about demons and princesses that scared and delighted me senselessly; there’s a touch of that with her latest conjuring— Japanese folkloric shaman morphing into these 1920s-silhouettes— morphing into… Skeksis.

Gods and monsters feels so seamless as a part of Rei's design vocabulary, and as a part of the Comme universe. But like a hugely diverse fashiondom, there will bound to be parts I won’t be attracted to. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to see more of it.

 

[softgrey]

clothing as an extension of our body, this is what the SS97 was about. it gave us a new look.
these days maybe she has been thinking of something like housing as a further extension of our skin, something that provides a new outlook.
sometimes rei is the mcluhan of fashion.


nowfashion

there you go again...!!!

i had to look up mcluhan...



so - now i have been researching mcluhan for 24 hrs...
not nearly enough to become an expert, of course...
what part of his proposals are you thinking of here...
"the medium is the message"...his most famous quote?

i also saw him speaking where he said "the present is only faced by the artist... and the artist who comes in contact with the present creates an avant garde image that is terrifying to the contemporaries..."

 

[mistress_f]

Anothermag posted some details / closeups from the showroom that I thought should be posted on here:











anothermag.com

 

[mistress_f]

anothermag.com

 

[Nymphaea]

Love the first look! Would have liked to see the toned-down more wearable version of this collection.

 

[softgrey]

thanks for the video...
amazing to see the looks - 360 degrees around...

blue velvet...of course...


i love the textures and shades of blue...
and any time you can use a feather, it's a good thing...
it's funny that i like this collection so much ...
it just strikes a chord...
maybe it's the criss cross lacing, velvet and ruffles?
a bit victorian...a bit pirate-y?!
...

anyway...thanks also to mistress f...
i thought i would like the detail shots more than i actually do...
imo, it all loses something when it's too static...
the weird lighting/colors don't help it either...

 

[runner]

thanks for the showroom pics and the video



softgrey, yes "Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man" where that famous quote comes from.
" any invention or technology is an extension or self-amputation of our physical bodies, and such extension also demands new ratios or new equilibriums among the other organs and extensions of the body. "
a bit like cronenberg's videodrome, in a sense.

housing in terms of that kind of perspective. that said, it should be more of ruinous one here of course. though tenderer than the iron maiden, even if eating in it would not be very easy.

anyway, just checked wwd and it seems that they are "blue witches".
but the white looks made me think of dante's angels with flame-like heads, wings of gold, and the rest whiter than snow.


nowfashion

 

[softgrey]

blue witches...
yes, i definitely see echoes of that witches collection from years ago...
in an exaggerated way...
that also had a lot of victorian elements...


dante's angels...
that's a v. cool and romantic interpretation runner...
i totally see it...
sugoi~


yes- mcluhan had said that technology would cause physical changes to the human body...
i see what you are referring to...
i read an interview about that sort of thing recently...
i guess it refers back to this sort of thinking...
hmmm...
self-amputation...
an eerie thought...

 

[Deleted member 7575]

I haven't been able to keep up with this thread but I want to throw in my two-cents....

Yes, CDG produces these clothes, like Softgrey said, in limited quantities. Often just a handful of each, if that (a friend bought a total look for a wedding dress and hunted down a top in London and a skirt in Japan).

But for every crazy runway piece there are dozens of other items based on it that are easier to wear not to mention less costly.

Personally I didn't love this runway show but again, if I went to the showroom there's a probably a version of these clothes that I would love.

 

[eugenius]

^From what I've seen on a few street-style blogs (always an accurate indication of the general public's buying habits), folks that do wind up wearing these extreme runway designs wind up looking quite silly, IMO. It always winds up looking like said wearers are going to a Letter People Convention. (src: givewayboy flickr)

 

[donyan]

^ that's nice.

I didn't really think much of anything to be frank, more like dreamland or the amount of dimensions a beautiful song takes if you play it in the dark after 3 am. Ultimately, over the years I noticed many of her collections come down to emotional availability.. you're either in for the ride or you're not. Personally, sometimes I'm not. But to demand after so many decades for her to change how she works and to respond to times, well.. good luck.

The way I perceive it, and god knows I don't even have time to give much thought on this and I already feel guilty for writing about it, sometimes it's just healthy to retreat, especially in an industry that seems to expect 100% and once you deliver that, 200% or 500% until it's all been extracted and you're reduced to nothing. You can play autistic the way someone like Margaret Howell does but I respect this pace too, of retreating and taking a profession that creates something so basic and primal and social and using a hundred strokes to transform it and create magic and story-telling that's usually absent from it, that only shares the same root but is unrelated because it exists somewhere else, all while still feeding the NY-minded business-starved consumer snapping fingers like 'wow me' with the other lines.

Anyway, these discussions can get so harsh and subjective... I'm puzzled by the dinosaur accusation in a time where NYFW is allowed to happen, where this cancer named Anna Wintour keeps calling the shots basically everywhere, where old houses are still equivalent of maximum success as a creator, where the sole format of fashion week is completely stupid and ancient. What's next? Yohji, you filthy rich broken record?. Back to this show, sometimes it's good to take some distance and let your imagination wander into constructive (not necessarily ambitious) new ways... and maybe respect the people that inspire to do so and inspire artistic expression (for lack of a better word), not just stardom and being and delivering what's hot.

This !!!

 

[runner]

in the 90's some designers had to consider how their clothes could be made distinct from others in the multi-label store retail space. now what is important first is how clothes appear online among those rivals.
with her recent collections all the clothing parts are big, epic in volume. they are chunks. as a result every look appears strong and actually the most impressive, no matter how arbitrarily it is framed in, even in the thumbnail sizes. in this sense, it is strategic rather than artistic. she needs for people to anyway notice CdG exist, especially when younger generations over here are the least interested in fashion. it might matter little if it is worn or not. of course someone will certainly buy and wear it, but, as we know, we will see lots of beautifully made round collar little dresses in that blue velvet being sold too.

each bricolage piece on the runway is a fictitious irregular shack of those enlarged clothing elements. or they are blue ruins rather than blue witches.
and about the garment on the harajuku girl it can be seen as cutesy, childish, funny, or silly, but it could also be more of something bleak. it is gaping, skeletal, scandalous, and dead. like say unintelligibly simple piranesi.


muian