Comme des Garçons S/S 2016 Paris

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[mistress_f]

Glamour and opulence Rei-style. I love it.

 

[Fashionstuff]

Love it. Always creativ.

 

[happycanadian]

YAAASSS!!!!!

How refreshing is it to have someone just go WILD like this?! It's been so long since we've had designers making statements. This is fashion as ART. It doesn't have to be wearable, it doesn't have to sell. This is a presentation of an idea, of a feeling. I adore it.

 

[liberty33r1b]

^you said it! it's really refreshing to see

 

[gazebo]

I you Rei forever! You make me want to laugh, you make me want to cry, you make me feel. You are a genius!

 

[krncandi]

Amazing ideas!! A nice refreshing side of fashion. Always looking forward to CDG for some unwearable ...maybe wearable for the 1% pure avant-garde fashion. Always challenging to the eye but truly beautiful work of art.
The construction and sewing always amazes me!

 

[Phuel]

Rei will always be so leagues and even dimensions ahead of the rest— and the Comme universe will always maintain its place in high fashiondom as a unique sovereign state that’s admired and revered.

But I always prefer when Rei and her team grace us mere mortals with collections that are as visionary as they are practical. And, Comme’s always done the disciplined-tailor-gone-mad(hatter) all too well whenever they do decide to design more practical garments.

Not that these occasional collections of elegant but completely statements aren't appreciated, but besides as a device for furthering the Comme mystique and obviously exciting the likes of Carine in the front row— as evidenced by that Instashot of her, it’s a tad too precious— and limiting, for me. mean, yes— all the silhouettes and shapes are interesting, and the texture and colors are sublime and CR Fashion Book will no doubt devote 30-pages to this collection with with Gigi and Bella wearing it all. But my simple, practical mind would also appreciate some more commercial looks included so that beyond “ahhhhhh-rt”, beyond “fa-SHONE”, it would be nice had there been something more to offer here, as worn by their costumers.

 

[dior_couture1245]

You know what, I totally agree with you Phuel. I feel like these collections from Rei the last several years just aren't relevant or all that contemporary feeling anymore. As fashion continues to embrace pragmatism, this kind of display just feels...well...dated.

Not that pragmatism should equal simple, easy, day-to-day pieces, but what feels modern in fashion today is confronting the reality of reality. How does a designer be creative within the boundaries of practicality and function? These kind of grandiose, art-piece collections just fall flat at this point, in my eyes, because what does this say about modern life? What does this say about men or women's lives today? What does this say about contemporary modes of operation?

Rei can make such clever, fabulous, thrilling CLOTHES. Clearly she's over conventional clothes-making (in fact, hasn't she outright said something to that exact effect in an interview recently?) and only interested in these concept/sculpture prices, but in doing so - she has kind of made herself a bit of a dinosaur.

 

[Uemarasan]

I disagree with you two though. I don't mind this sculptural period in Rei Kawakubo's legacy for the simple fact that she is one of the few designers immune to the vicissitudes of fashion (and thank God for it). The fashion industry has always been subject to the governing forces of time - contemporaneity, nostalgia, futurism, history, vogue, cycles, seasons - and the typical or even the great designers make clothes in dialogue with these forces. If you want a designer that tasks himself or herself with navigating these spheres of fashion, then you can look to every other collection outside of Comme des Garçons. But Rei Kawakubo has never chosen to navigate these spheres, in a sense she is almost beyond the vicissitudes of fashion, and to expect her to be in dialogue with the idea of modern dressing is to go on a fool's errand. I would argue she exists outside of fashion, or perhaps ironically represents its purest, undistilled form, and in this way she is similar to that other lone genius of fashion history: Cristobal Balenciaga.

Besides, if you want to see her work within the perimeters of fashion, there are her men's collections to peruse. Also, it's something ingrained in fashion, but those who appreciate it can get lost in fashion's manufactured idea of time. Rei Kawakubo has only been in sculptural mode for five seasons so far. Five seasons is a very small drop in the bucket. Her legacy stretches decades, and I'm looking forward to where she goes after this period. As of now, I'm enjoying how she is able to make something beautiful out of something so impractical to wear, how these resemble clothing but are not quite clothing, and I choose to remain patient because Rei Kawakubo does not work under the same conditions as her contemporaries. No themes, no explorations, no references, no allusions, no proposals, no trends, no distinctions between the seasons, no attempts to be modern or nostalgic or futuristic, no need to conform. Just ideas about clothing.

 

[Phuel]

^^^ That’s all very well said, but I’m not convinced. And I am forever impressed by Rei and her Comme universe’s continuing experimentation, after all these years, her momentum has yet to show any signs of slowing down. But the concept of a collection that is separate from the relevance of not just the current fashion climate— but how the garments may be worn on more practical level, as a means to navigate through the environment of the wearers’ daily lives, it seems all too selfish, too clueless, and not to mention, utterly restricting for me.

Designers have always included strictly showpieces, couture-y pieces in their offerings, that’s nothing new. I just find what is being done here too precious, to self-indulgent and too… easy. It’s much much much harder— and far more challenging to design with a new perspective that also includes a sense of practicality for the wearer. On a purely superficial level, the lush cocoons and plush textures, just screams winter to me here.

(And any suggestion of the clothes that will be available in the shops will be the actual RTW is such a lazy cop-out to me. I would appreciate a vision more if it were more thoughtful not to just the fantasy, but the practicality of high fashion.

I suppose to Rei, that’s what CdG Shirt and the rest of the 500 sub-labels are for LOL)

 

[Creative]

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.

 

[Uemarasan]

^^We'll have to disagree then on the point of practically because this has never been a major concern of this label, particularly this line in the Comme des Garçons universe which is the most experimental, so I think that you are expecting something from Rei Kawakubo that she has never sought to deliver in the first place. Sort of like expecting classical landscape from Picasso. It's just not conceivable or valid.

Anyway, she's already shown that she can work within the boundaries of traditional ideas of clothing and annihilate said boundaries. You just have to look at the collections preceding this suite. And I will have to disagree as well that working within the confines of practicality is somehow more difficult than working outside of it. Yes, there is value in exploring the limits of practicality. Many beautiful things have come out of it. But it is far more intimidating to explore outside of this safety zone, when there is nothing to serve as a net for failure and all you are faced with is a blank space. This is where Kawakubo is now, and I commend her for being brave, especially in the current state of the fashion industry. She reminds me of James Joyce when he produced Finnegans Wake and erased all traditional limits of literature and the English language. Or the Dadaists. Maybe it's all a matter of opposing perspectives. You see her as a designer and thus beholden to certain rules and expectations. I don't see her in the same way.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

i like the feathers and red wigs
is this about birds in their nests?
this feels all bird-like to me.

 

[Uemarasan]

Oh, and creators should be allowed to be "selfish" and "egotistical", especially these days. Otherwise we'd have the fashion equivalent of cinemas only showing superhero movies and sequels about dinosaurs.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

^ agree with you!

 

[gazebo]

I think Rei is very aware of everything around her and the world, and particularly the fashion world. I think she feels the shift towards pragmatism and practicality and pure commerce from before it even actually started to happen, and in pure Rei form she goes directly in opposite direction, giving as pure art as a counter reaction to all the "clothes" we see all around us.

I think it's very important for her to remind us that fashion is more than mere "clothes", fashion is about feelings, fashion says something other than "I'm practical, I'm comfortable, I'm beautiful, I'm flattering, I'm sexy, I'm cool, you need me, come and buy me now".
fashion makes you think and it is art.