Comme Des Garcons

Black Hole. Comme Des Garçons Homme Plus AW26

| Design & Culture by Ed

Not that Rei Kawakubo needs any introduction, but her name has been louder than usual this fashion week. Jonathan Anderson’s incredible sophomore men’s collection for Dior took many cues from Comme des Garçons Homme Plus, especially in its distorted, tweaked tailoring – pure Rei at its core. And the collection she presented yesterday was nothing short of powerful. Kept strictly in black and white, it was beautifully solemn and somewhat disturbing (the Hannibal Lecter masks and demonic wigs!). The way she shredded lace and tweed for her jackets is beyond words; the flower-imitating knots and draped coats are as poetic as ever. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.

ED’s SELECTION:


Comme Des Garçons Flap Pocket Wool-Blend Blazer



Comme Des Garçons x PHILEO Melted Derby Shoes



Comme Des Garçons Checked Wool Jacket

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Damaged Beauty. Comme Des Garçons SS26

| Design & Culture by Ed

My Paris Fashion Week ritual? Paying a visit to the Comme des Garçons showroom. It’s like Sunday church – or a moment of epiphany.

This season, Rei Kawakubo intentionally “damaged” materials to create something raw and radical. Artisan lace was shredded. Jute and brocade received the rough, John Chamberlain treatment. Anything once considered precious was mistreated without mercy. The result: heart-wrenching beauty – a vision that captures the pain of the contemporary world, silences the omnipresent noise, and transforms imperfection into absolute power. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Small Can Be Mighty. Comme Des Garçons AW25

| Design & Culture by Ed

Let me tell you.. fashion month exhausted me to such extent I had to take a teeny-tiny break and I’ve missed a couple of shows in my usual reporting. This also made me realize, why the hurry? Before Instagram, you had to wait at least a month for any (printed) magazine to deliver a proper fashion month coverage. I remember those times, so I officially feel old.

Comme Des Garçons was an important moment. Rei Kawakubo’s wearable shapes and constructions were slightly (just slightly) getting daunting in the past few seasons with their amorphism and assamblage-ness, but for autumn-winter 2025, the designer went back to making clothes – or rather, concepts of clothes. Not that they were in any way normative. But you could see substantial ideas behind multiple cocktail dresses topping a black tutu base, or in the massive velvet crinolines. There were many layers of pink, red, and watermelon duchess satin bodices and skirts, smashed and clashed together, looking like some kind of couture godzilla. Meanwhile, on the soundtrack, the recording of the Bulgarian singers – as Adrian Joffe, Rei’s husband, shared – was of “workers in the fields, harvest, families, getting things done together.” This holds symbolism for Rei Kawakubo and for Joffe about the independence of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market – the two rare, assertive, yet thriving enterprises in an increasingly mega-corporation-dominated world.

Small can be mighty.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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