The Comme des Garçons "Universe"

[softgrey]

thanks for those pics runner...

BarneysNY is carrying the girl stuff in small quantities so i got to see some...
it's cute...very commercial...

i'm reposting this here cause i think it belongs here...

kind of surprised to find that there is now a website for the cdg universe...
i remember awhile back that rei's husband said that there probably never would be...
not if rei got her way...
i guess they finally convinced her!

...

it's certainly different that what we are used to...
the navigation is not straightforward...
i actually like it...
it's more like a gallery...
there is a section of work by ai wei wei that i quite like...
*not sure if that's a permanent thing or if they will rotate featured artists in that space...

anyway...here is is...though i should probably put it in the cdg universe thread...

http://www.comme-des-garcons.com/index.html

cannot believe i never replied to the last post with all the red...
i guess it was a case of studying and thinking about it and feeling like i had responded when all the while i was just talking to myself about it...
...

i'll have to respond later to that stuff...
it's really incredible...
i didn't get it at all until you started to explain it runner...
because i had googled and it all just looked completely crazy and like a horror movie...
but then i started to see it differently and my perspective shifted and my understanding grew...

it's like putting on a pair of glasses and having things come into focus...
that is the best way i can describe it...
seeing it through a different lens...

 

[runner]

thanks softgrey for the link, to tell the truth it was posted when it was launched but they say it got some renewal recently, which I didn't know. so certainly good timing reminder. and thank you very much again for the ai weiwei handkerchief!

maybe they found some difficulty in selling that first collection where it seemed as if they had traced resemblances between an image of the granny and that of the little girl or by doing so they had tried to create a new image.
and now it has become a line where it is hard for us to find something for kazuo ohno. as you say, looks like much of it is now commercial. but there are still a few fragments that are neither comme comme, nor tricot, nor junya man pink.


girl S/S 2016
( from the second issue of the new magazine please)

amazon
sasakioffice

 

[runner]

sasakioffice

 

[runner]

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

while I cannot tell you what is the best without knowing what you want and I don't know whether it has to be written in english, I'd say here anyway the documentary TV program NHK broadcasted around 2002 is the resource that was able to dive most deeply into the company of CdG and touch the heart of it. it's not a book of course (there is a book "unlimited CdG" based on the documentary that is not good honestly) but it's been around for years for free even if it may be deleted sometimes.

 

[gazebo]

Thank you!
Any idea where can I watch it now?

 

[runner]

you're welcome

here

 

[softgrey]

new scent added to the universe...

Direct mail from CDG

 

[gius]

There is a "universe map" on the first page of this thread, but maybe there can be made a new one? A list? Cos cdg girl is not on there, nor boy. And they aren't on Vogue either...

 

[runner]

little interview with kei ninomiya at aoyama headquarters
japanese only though there are images
http://www.vogue.co.jp/fashion/from_editor_in_chief/2016-10-20


vogue

 

[runner]

here

about the documentary, what I once wrote elsewhere though, if anyone is interested


it was extremely rare that CdG was featured on TV that way even in japan. and also never happaned again since then, as far as I know.
the highlight was that we got to see quite concretely how she was workin on that collection S/S 2002 and how things were actually progressing there.

at the beginning of september, the 16 patternmakers set about their work for the collection (pic 1).
neither of them knew what the other patternmakers were making. the only person which each of them was communicating with during the intensive weeks where they seek to make the invisible visible was rei kawakubo. through words, through verbal struggles, over and over and over until the deadline, since what rei formally acquired at achool was not dressmaking nor sartorial training but aesthetics and science of arts.

at the end of the month, a week before the flight for paris, she finally showed to them the actual fabrics for the styles they had been working on (pic 2). she did that as late as possible because she wanted them to be pure in creation, devoid of any preconceptions and calculations. the main material for that collection was nylon originally used for fishing line (pic 3, 4). it felt just right when she needed some steely texture specifically. but the textiles made of it had been regarded as uninteresting by the apparel industry because they are impossible to dye. and moreover they are strangely stiff and therefore too tricky for dressmaking. so it was definitely something that could have withered the patternmakers' potentiality with scare. for her, their imagination is vital since she is not able to turn something abstract in her head into form herself. the formation is dependant on sort of double contingency, contingent solidarity, between her and each patternmaker alone, where they together have an ambitious hope that they might be able to create a new form. chance is wafting between the two. there is no draft intermediate, no sketch prepared beforehand. and there are no assistant designers in the studio. she says the pattern equals the design. every patternmaker has to be more than what they would normally be considered as. in the interview, one of the patternmakers confessed that he has some experiences he wanted to disappear because it's hard to progress side by side with her. and she understood that well, saying "we sometimes find ourselves on the verge of losing our mind".

also the day she showed the fabrics seems to be the point of a veer, from creation to production.
the former phase is about rei × individual patternmaker. the next phase is about oven-fresh form × unconventional fabric, where someone in charge of this part, yoneko kikuchi (pic 5), shows up, who is capable of technical adjustments and solutions. it is this person that the patternmakers mostly communicate with here, instead of rei who is expecting accidents there too of course.

in the evening of october 4, all the garments the factory had just finished were delivered to the studio (pic 6).
midnight of october 5, her final check continued along with all the staff members who had been involved, all night, until the very last minute (pic 7).
at 6 am, they went right to the airport with the clothes.

she has mixed feeling about reputation. says "if all the audience approve it, I will be worried about it. because I'm afraid it failed then. what I tried to do is show something new. all approval means it was not new".

screenshots

 

[softgrey]

little interview with kei ninomiya at aoyama headquarters
japanese only though there are images
http://www.vogue.co.jp/fashion/from_editor_in_chief/2016-10-20


vogue

thanks! this was good...
maybe the first time i've seen what he looks like!
amazing hair...
obviously...

......

could only understand part of the interview from the (very bad) translation...
but, was interesting anyway...

thanks for sharing!

 

[bearbrick]

Any images of ANYTHING of CDG from before the Paris debut shows ?
From the 1970s !

Would love to see what the clothing were like then .

 

[runner]

you're welcome softgrey

seems like kei ninomiya is involved in the moncler's new project.


asahi

 

[softgrey]

cool!
his work gets stronger every season...


thx again runner!!

 

[softgrey]

comme is doing a collab with Melissa shoes...
looking for pics...

 

[helmutnotdead]

Hello guys, I'm a bit late to the party but I have to ask (I don't know if this is the right forum Do you agree if I tell you that, at least for me, Rei Kawakubo is the most important designer ever?

 

[softgrey]

Hello guys, I'm a bit late to the party but I have to ask (I don't know if this is the right forum Do you agree if I tell you that, at least for me, Rei Kawakubo is the most important designer ever?

no...
there is no such thing...

 

[runner]

comme is doing a collab with Melissa shoes...
looking for pics...

from CdG SS2018 and homme plus FW2018


wwdjp

 

[softgrey]

from CdG SS2018 and homme plus FW2018


wwdjp

minnie mouse shoes...
fun!


maybe in my earlier life...

thanks runner!!
you're the best..

 

[runner]

a beautiful girl like a boy who wrote to me, " I like stars, night, something sad, ending, inorganic matter, I'm not female nor male "

- taruho inagaki