The Comme des Garçons "Universe"

[bonus]

Noir Kei Ninomiya Fall Winter 2014 "Exciting Black"






fashion-headline.com

 

[bonus]

NKN spring collection featured on Last magazine's website


thelast-magazine.com

 

[runner]

thanks for posting the images, bonus


the latest comme issue out this week on friday


fashionpress

 

[runner]

this SS 2015 is the first season for COMME des GARÇONS GIRL.
there had been a small group of womenswear included by COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT, as mentioned in some of CdG threads. and this time the independence of that SHIRT GIRL with its own name without "SHIRT", as a full-fledged line. the designer, rei kawakubo.
round collar, puff sleeves, ruffles, polkadots, gingham, dark navy instead of black, jumper and pleated skirts, basically japanese school girl uniform.

her main line now is a miko from the future, or even a marebito.
comme comme may be a conscience of CdG.
tricot is a prankster in tao.
PLAY is a souvenir for fashion tourism.
I don't know what rei is going to charge this new line with, but from the debut collection, it's, rather than the girliest and the sweetest line, too girly and too sweet to be honestly cute. as a result, it's acrid. there is no point making something just cute anyway. she can leave that to others. it's a toadstool, a house of witchcraft candy in the universe.



fashionsnap
wwdjapan

 

[softgrey]

i'll comment on that stuff later but i was looking at this girl's blog and i LOVE her japanese/western names for some things...

comme comme becomes "Komukomu"

...

knit polo becomes "nituporo"...



i just have to keep looking because i have to find more like this!

http://marucoruma.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-05-07T23:50:00+09:00&max-results=7

 

[softgrey]

the cutest...


http://commedesgarconslovers.tumblr...comme-des-garcons-illustrated-by-mario-mendez

 

[softgrey]

this SS 2015 is the first season for COMME des GARÇONS GIRL.
there had been a small group of womenswear included by COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT, as mentioned in some of CdG threads. and this time the independence of that SHIRT GIRL with its own name without "SHIRT", as a full-fledged line. the designer, rei kawakubo.
round collar, puff sleeves, ruffles, polkadots, gingham, dark navy instead of black, jumper and pleated skirts, basically japanese school girl uniform.

her main line now is a miko from the future, or even a marebito.
comme comme may be a conscience of CdG.
tricot is a prankster in tao.
PLAY is a souvenir for fashion tourism.
I don't know what rei is going to charge this new line with, but from the debut collection, it's, rather than the girliest and the sweetest line, too girly and too sweet to be honestly cute. as a result, it's acrid. there is no point making something just cute anyway. she can leave that to others. it's a toadstool, a house of witchcraft candy in the universe.



fashionsnap
wwdjapan

runner-
this is perhaps the strongest personal opinion i have ever heard from you...
i have grown accustomed to your posting images and info without necessarily revealing your personal opinions and/or feelings about them...
this leads me to believe you must feel quite strongly about this new collection from cdg...
"acrid" is a strong word in english...

i must confess, i quite like getting to know your personal opinion...
it's a bit shocking for me at first to read such strong opinions from someone as generally reserved as yourself...
but it resonates all the more strongly for that reason...
thanks very much for sharing...
i can't say that i disagree with you!


miko-
it says on wiki that they traditionally wear red hakama with a white top...
my main reference for this is an image from anime...
from Inuyasha, to be exact...
here also we see the schoolgirl uniform...
one is meant to be the reincarnation of the other...
hmmm...
do we think that rei has been watching inuyasha?


*i have no idea what the writing says...?
fanpop

 

[softgrey]

ad for the new line
quite a beautiful image, imo

****yeahcommedesgarcons.tumblr

 

[softgrey]

thanks for posting the images, bonus


the latest comme issue out this week on friday


fashionpress

thanks also to bonus from me for those great images!
and thanks to you, runner...
beautiful shooting in both cases...

 

[runner]

thanks for the ad softgrey

adjectives are tricky to me here, since sometimes I'm not sure if the ones I picked up can properly convey what I mean. anyway I thought that if I stop with "too girly and too sweet to be honestly cute", you might think I was referring to something like cutesy (by which I mean some cute-y version of "goody-goody", "goody-two-shoes"). so to make it clear I used acrid. I wanted to say it's not a doll, but yayoi kusama as well as kazuo ohno and yukio nakagawa.

while rei and yohji happened to succeed overseas, there were some other designers and brands as popular locally in those days. of them, there is a man named isao kaneko (who had already retired). another graduate of bunka, and one of those who experienced setsu (sort of training place rather than formal mode school which yohji and rei too went trough). anyone who had spent the 70'/80's in japan cannot help remembering what isao kaneko did, seeing CdG GIRL. the last five pics below are the work of kaneko. in a way, it's rei's take on kaneko's brand "pink house", obviously because she used pink for the logo. but his work was coming from country/folklore style and never suggested death. it was never irony.

I do think the outfit in the GIRL ad above would look best on kazuo ohno if he were alive.



asahi
komiyama
5a.biglobe
oocities.org

 

[runner]

the writing says inuyasha in big kanji (and little hiragana, as kids may not read kanji).
basically rei kawakubo seems to be checking anything all the time. so I guess she knows of inuyasha at least.
anyway as you know there has been some school uniform culture in japan and it has been one of the parts that comprise CdG. but it is a part which contains the essence of the whole. every part is full alone. CdG is collective and individual.

after all, it is still a marebito that there would be dancing there if we saw kazuo performing in GIRL.

 

[runner]

btw, though rumiko takahashi is well-known over here, generally inuyasha is not familiar to our generation because it is a relatively recent/later work. what we all are familiar with would be "urusei yatsura" and "maison ikkoku".

the deformed school uniform culture really reflects the juvenile feelings of the times. so there have been various styles. for instance bankara was the big one. the uniform in the inuyasha image above looks alien to our schooldays and completely different from that of the 80's. the style conspicuous in the early 80's was called sukeban: a delinquent in schoolgirl. you can see the metamorphosis depicted very well in the images below, from almost normal form to full sukeban imago. the longer the skirt and the shorter the jacket or the top, the cooler. the accessories, styling, hair were all important too.

when rei apperared in magazines back then, I thought of her as a woman who felt like a skeban in some way. and decades later somewhere I heard her calling herself "an adult delinquent".


yahoo

 

[softgrey]

man...
every time i think i understand what is going on, i realize that there is so much stuff i know nothing about...
...

 

[softgrey]

thanks for the ad softgrey

adjectives are tricky to me here, since sometimes I'm not sure if the ones I picked up can properly convey what I mean. anyway I thought that if I stop with "too girly and too sweet to be honestly cute", you might think I was referring to something like cutesy (by which I mean some cute-y version of "goody-goody", "goody-two-shoes"). so to make it clear I used acrid. I wanted to say it's not a doll, but yayoi kusama as well as kazuo ohno and yukio nakagawa.

while rei and yohji happened to succeed overseas, there were some other designers and brands as popular locally in those days. of them, there is a man named isao kaneko (who had already retired). another graduate of bunka, and one of those who experienced setsu (sort of training place rather than formal mode school which yohji and rei too went trough). anyone who had spent the 70'/80's in japan cannot help remembering what isao kaneko did, seeing CdG GIRL. the last five pics below are the work of kaneko. in a way, it's rei's take on kaneko's brand "pink house", obviously because she used pink for the logo. but his work was coming from country/folklore style and never suggested death. it was never irony.

I do think the outfit in the GIRL ad above would look best on kazuo ohno if he were alive.



asahi
komiyama
5a.biglobe
oocities.org

ah---thanks for clarifying...
i see now what you were trying to say when you used the word acrid...
it makes a lot more sense now...
not so much your opinion of it, as a description of the aesthetic...
the toadstool comment makes more sense now as well...


thanks for explaining also about isao kaneko, who i never heard of...
kind of amazig stuff!
the connection between this new line and "pink house" seems quite clear from those pics...
but it is definitely coming from a darker place, as you suggest...

i do agree...
kazuo ohno would be great in that red outfit...


though i may need a lesson on yukio nakagawa now...

 

[softgrey]

btw, though rumiko takahashi is well-known over here, generally inuyasha is not familiar to our generation because it is a relatively recent/later work. what we all are familiar with would be "urusei yatsura" and "maison ikkoku".

the deformed school uniform culture really reflects the juvenile feelings of the times. so there have been various styles. for instance bankara was the big one. the uniform in the inuyasha image above looks alien to our schooldays and completely different from that of the 80's. the style conspicuous in the early 80's was called sukeban: a delinquent in schoolgirl. you can see the metamorphosis depicted very well in the images below, from almost normal form to full sukeban imago. the longer the skirt and the shorter the jacket or the top, the cooler. the accessories, styling, hair were all important too.

when rei apperared in magazines back then, I thought of her as a woman who felt like a skeban in some way. and decades later somewhere I heard her calling herself "an adult delinquent".


yahoo

thanks for explaining about this and about inuyasha...
frankly- the only reason i watched inuyasha is that i once read that hayao miyazake was to receive an animation award at the same time as rumiko takahashi so i guessed that she must be quite good and was curious to know what she had done...
inuyasha is simply the most available work of hers here in the US...
i had no idea when it was from, so thank you for explaining...

but those illustrations of the uniforms is really the ultimate visual...
...

i didn't really understand any of that about the longer skirts and shorter tops/jkts...etc...
but that is comme all the way...
and it looks like rei~!
i totally get it now...
omoshiroi...

...

arigatou---

 

[runner]

doitashimasite softgrey


about yukio nakagawa, many of what we have come to know about CdG would not have happened without him. maybe he is a permanent stimulus for her. the avant-garde spirit that enchants her forever should be his spirit.

there is an art genre or world called ikebana or kadou. it is one of the industries that had the most sublime and the fiercest history in postwar japan, and he was someone from there. but his work was too different to belong there. it was too intense even in that world. it was violent.
also the universe of kadou was such a splendor that it was a big money-collecting system full of scandals and worldly affairs. he chose honest and ascetic poverty and preferred aloneness and sacredness.

the flowers in the pink house images look like the ones in the garden, in the park, or as props, so they could be imitation ones. it's fine if they are not neither life nor death especially.
on the other hand, there are also flowers in the deep forest, in a jungle, or even as the sexual organs of plants. they live so vividly that death is perceivable. if they are dead they cannot die. so he expressed life strongly. he suggested eternity in ephemerality.
and he was a photographer, due to the nature of the medium, as well as a glass artist, in need of proper "vase" for his ikebana work ( like the one only usable upside-down ). lastly he was a calligrapher ( 花 = flower ).


there is a documentary film hana inochi nakagawa yukio (flower life yukio nakagawa), if you're interested.
trailer


natsume-books
book-komiyama
ameblo
hanainochi

 

[runner]

what DSM ginza currently looks like


ginza.doverstreetmarket

 

[MulletProof]

man...
every time i think i understand what is going on, i realize that there is so much stuff i know nothing about...
...

... can I just poke my nose in here and say that I kept the first posts by runner open in my browser for days!, reading the same line over and over, googling, then putting the pieces together. I went from 'this so interesting..' to 'will I ever understand?'.

Thank you for keeping this discussion going, and runner! you'd give some fascinating classes...you've done this for years but sometimes I forget to thank you, I like how you share all your knowledge of references and cultural elements and break things down with all the calmness in the world.

 

[runner]

thanks Mullet!


the girl pieces from kikuya
the girl corner at DSM ginza


kikuya
ginza.doverstreetmarket

 

[gazebo]

Hi friends,

I'm not sure this is the place for this question, but,
can someone tell me what are the best Comme des Garcons books and where is the most inexpensive way to get them online?

Thanks a bunch