THE GROUNDBREAKING vision of Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons is something we rarely witness at fashion weeks across the capitals. Her most recent collection at PFW AW20 aptly titled Neo Future, continues her legacy as an innovator.
In the show notes, Kawakubo posed the age-old question, “Is it not impossible to make something completely and utterly new, since we are all living in this world?” The collection challenged such notion, with clothes that felt “completely and utterly new” despite being derived from the past.
Kawakubo presented 20 looks, each look treated as separate show, sound tracked by its own music and wildly dissimilar. As expected colour and proportion were played with, each look presenting a completely new silhouette, in a completely different colour palette. The only real parity between looks was in the form of socks and heeled sandals, each pair brandished with the Comme des Garçons logo.
Past collections were echoed – with bulbous looks resembling her famous Lumps and Bumps collection of SS97 – and others, bold in colour and geometric in shape, referenced her two-dimensional paper doll-like collection of AW12. Exaggerated black and white lace veils were worn over irregular headpieces, a nod to Kawakubo’s AW05 bridal themed collection. It seems through looking back Kawakubo presented clothes that were wholly new – acting as a mere reminder of what was before.
The AW20 Comme des Garçons Neo Future collection, reiterates Rei Kawakubo’s brilliance as a contemporary designer. In an industry of endless regurgitation of the past, Kawakubo seems to forever make clothes that speak of the future.
by Augustine Hammond
Images: Elizabeth Pantaleo for NOWFASHION