Comme des Garçons

"Inside Decoration" was the theme Rei Kawakubo offered for fall, but then, such explanations are always open to interpretation when it comes to Comme des Garçons. What we see and experience is more the point. In contrast to fashion's obsession with the body-conscious, Kawakubo, ever the rebel, sent out clothes and forms blown up to enormous volumes. In her usual palette of black, white, gray and tartan red, she presented dresses with what looked like built-in bullet-proof vests. The coats and jackets, worn with balloon shorts, offered even more exaggeration of protection in the form of lumps and bumps, reminiscent of her revolutionary show of 1997. The bumps resembled internal organs and body parts, but shown on the exterior. Can a skirt resemble intestines? Yes, if it's a Comme skirt—a much more polite version of what's really on our insides. Then came a series of white dresses that looked more like an overflowing bubble bath, or cumulus clouds floating through a sky of puzzled faces.

• Posted Mar 07, 2010
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