October 5, 2025 |
“I believe in the positiveness and the value that can be born from the damaging of perfect things.” That was the message from Comme des Garçons’ Rei Kawakubo who titled her show After the Dust.
Was the dust an apocalypse? Or just the debris that comes off when you shake something down. Kawakubo’s said no more, but her relentless search for a new beauty led her to take humble materials like canvas, calico, burlap or sack cloth and scrunch, stack and bundle them into soaring fashion sculptures. Many looks were finished with tall bifurcated straw top hats and candy floss pink and yellow wigs.
A raw canvas cascade of patches was stitched together in a crush and worn with a snowflake table cloth lace cape. Sack-like skirts were gathered at the hem and topped with an ‘exploded’ dress, its pattern pieces, like the universe, expanding ever outwards. There were tall constructions in sack cloth and lace, one with a jaunty roll of fabric that jutted forwards like an elephants trunk or a pointing arm.
One top was tied like an over stuffed bundle, others had the look of a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream, and were topped with pink candy floss wigs which contorted the hair into pastel neck cushions. The ice cream theme continued with a pink pouf of quilted skirt worn with a boulder-like cape.
One cone dress was dress built of quilted tubes and looked like reformatted mattress topper. Another look came as a white yeti fur dress worn with a soaring straw cardinals hat so tall that the model had to dip to navigate the catwalk. The ideas here cascade in an almost overwhelming abundance. That’s the beauty of Comme.
Photography by Christina Fragkou.
