COMME des Garçons’ PFW SS17 collection Invisible Clothes was accompanied by Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony nr 3, also known as Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. The atmosphere set by this melody was dark, intriguing and ceremonious.
Models, whose heads were covered by transparent Plexiglas crystals, started strutting down the runway wearing enormous square shaped garments with absolutely unconventional silhouettes. These huge sculptural creations occupied most of the runway, while model’s bodies and heads were disappearing, hidden and captured into these huge structures. This paradox suggested that the show could be focusing more on the invisibility of these women into clothes rather than the invisibility of clothes themselves.
The incredible Rei Kawakubo is an icon of modernity who is constantly reinventing the definition of fashion by broadening its boundaries and exploring what is the difference between fashion and art, if there is one. She is the head of one of fashion industry’s most influential houses, which gives her the power to do what she wants.
With her creations, she has always followed an opposite path from most trendsetting brands and with her last collections she is tackling disconcerting and hurtful issues about being a female. This season many women managed to achieve the position of creative director for houses which have historically been headed by men, but despite this the world is organised by a political and economical system which remains male-dominated.
The collection seemed to resemble a woman’s life cycle, referencing Kawakubo’s past collections. The first outfit is a deep black extremely-oversize dress with a cut out porthole from which a swollen, pregnant belly comes out. Subsequently, the seventh outfit is a fitted dress sewed into a square quilted fabric, one of the designer’s ever favourites.
Outfit number eight reminds the audience of a pitch black funeral crib, while the 16th frilly embellished dress is intense passionate red, echoing the designer’s Sex collection. Other references to her past work includes a Peter Pan-collared schoolgirl dress like a big quilted disc and a gigantic coat with a black-and-white polka-dot motif.
This majestic and retrospective collection from Comme des Garçons could also be a way for the designer to prepare for her first retrospective which will open in May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her work is not easy to read, the meaning is complex and intricate, reasons why she is idolized in the fashion world. Rei Kawakubo herself has defined this collection as the “purest and most extreme version of Comme des Garçons”.
by Lucrezia Celeste d’Acquarone