Before the pandemic, the strength of Paris Fashion Week was very much in its ability to attract foreign designers. Thus, the world envied us the clothing experiments of Comme des Garçons, which had been parading in France and in small groups since 1999. Unfortunately, since the spring of 2020, the Japanese label and its two other brilliant satellites – Noir Kei Ninomiya and Junya Watanabe – have been playing at home.
At the end of March, they presented their fall-winter 2021-2022 collections on the sidelines of Tokyo Fashion Week through three minishows of 80 guests, mostly Japanese and some American or European journalists based in Tokyo. Their video capture is far from a Hollywood blockbuster and stays true to their philosophy that clothing matters more than its environment. But even viewed through somewhat dark images, these collections continue to strike the imagination.
While at the same time, Stella McCartney or Kenzo were offering high-vitamin changing rooms, Comme des Garçons chose to “Rest in the serenity of monochrome”. This parade, all in black and white, is not minimalist, however: the twenty models, presented in a romantic haze, are as free in their form as clouds. Some bodies are trapped in cotton spheres tied around the waist or the arms. There is this voluminous black cape whose irregular collar floats well above the shoulders or this spherical top which covers the face up to the nose and leaves the lower abdomen in the air. Rigor does not have the monopoly of the heart of the designer Rei Kawakubo, we also find softness, through volutes of white lace sometimes tangled in mountains of black tulle.
On the side of Black, it stings. Designer Kei Ninomiya has imagined an equally spectacular collection, called “Metal Couture”, where most of the silhouettes are bristling with flexible steel spikes. Great for social distancing! There are also more familiar elements, taken from the punk universe (the black Perfecto), classic (striped trousers, tennis), SM (leather belts placed on the chest), folkloric (dress with ruffles and polka dots) which coexist harmoniously. With always what it takes of strangeness not to denote in the middle of human cacti.
Junya Watanabe, on the other hand, offers a little more relaxed fashion and explores “The immortal spirit of rock” (that’s the name of his collection) through a collection of t-shirts that pay tribute to Kiss, AC / DC, Black Sabbath or David Bowie, and signs a partnership with Levi’s. Nothing too classic, however: the magma of fabrics, the shock of colors and the diversion of shapes ensure that whoever wears them will not go unnoticed.