CDG Essentials: Iconic Pieces Reimagined

Comme des Garçons: Beyond Fashion, A Radical Vision

Comme des Garçons is not just a brand; it’s a language of rebellion, a design philosophy, and an evolving dialogue with culture, identity, and form. Since its inception in 1969 by Rei Kawakubo in Tokyo, Comme des Garçons has disrupted the very idea of what fashion means. With garments that challenge symmetry, blur gender, and defy trends, the brand has become an emblem of intellectual style and fearless experimentation.

More than a label, Comme des Garçons is an ethos—a universe where beauty is found in imperfection, where the deconstructed becomes powerful, and where fashion is not worn but interpreted.

The Beginning of a Movement

Rei Kawakubo founded Comme des Garçons with a vision that had never before existed in the fashion landscape. With no formal training in fashion, her background in fine arts and literature shaped a unique creative lens. In 1981, the brand’s debut in Paris sent shockwaves through the fashion world—black, asymmetrical, tattered, and radical pieces walked down the runway, shattering Western norms of femininity, polish, and luxury.

Dubbed by critics as "Hiroshima chic" or "anti-fashion", the collection was not a rejection of fashion—it was a demand for its evolution.

Philosophy in Fabric

Comme des Garçons thrives on contradiction. It embraces imperfection, irregularity, asymmetry, and conceptualism. Clothing is not designed to flatter but to provoke thought. Silhouettes are often exaggerated, cut open, unfinished, or warped—forcing the wearer and observer to reconsider shape, proportion, and purpose.

Where most brands aim to sell an idealized lifestyle, Comme des Garçons questions ideals themselves. It is fashion as abstract art, as performance, as critique. This is why Kawakubo often avoids interviews—preferring the work to speak in silence and resistance.

At its core, Comme des Garçons is about “creation and destruction”—a constant cycle of breaking the old to build something never seen before.

A Brand with Many Faces

Comme des Garçons is more than a single line—it is a constellation of ideas expressed through various sub-labels:

• Comme des Garçons Homme Plus: The men’s line that explores and exaggerates masculinity, often combining tailoring with theatrical flair.

• Comme des Garçons Shirt: A playful approach to reimagining the classic shirt, often using unconventional fabrics and graphics.

• Comme des Garçons Play: The accessible, street-level diffusion line recognized globally for its iconic heart-with-eyes logo, designed by Polish artist Filip Pagowski. It’s youthful, minimalist, and quietly rebellious.

• Comme des Garçons Noir, Comme des Garçons Girl, Tricot, and others: Each sub-label reflects a different aspect of Rei’s vision—some softer, some louder, all layered with meaning.

Each line is not just a commercial expansion but a curated branch of the brand’s ever-growing artistic tree.

Retail as Installation: The Guerrilla Spirit

Comme des Garçons redefined the retail experience through concept spaces like Dover Street Market—a curated fusion of art, culture, and fashion. Originally opened in London in 2004, it now exists in key cities like Tokyo, New York, Beijing, and Los Angeles.

These spaces are designed not as stores, but as evolving galleries. Brands are curated side-by-side with installations, artists, and disruptive architecture. Every season, DSM is reborn—displaying a constantly shifting environment that echoes the CDG ethos of reinvention.

Even earlier, Comme des Garçons pioneered guerrilla stores—temporary retail installations that would pop up in abandoned buildings or raw industrial spaces in unexpected cities, lasting only a year. These anti-commercial experiments questioned consumerism and reshaped the global luxury retail playbook.

Collaborations with Purpose

While many brands chase clout through collaborations, Comme des Garçons chooses partners based on creative tension and philosophical alignment. Over the years, the brand has collaborated with an eclectic range of entities:

• Nike, Converse, and Salomon: Merging avant-garde aesthetic with performance footwear.

• Louis Vuitton: Challenging the codes of luxury through subversion.

• Supreme: Uniting underground skate culture with high fashion rebellion.

• Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gucci, Lacoste, Gosha Rubchinskiy: Artistic, unexpected, often chaotic—yet always deeply intentional.

These collaborations are not about selling more—they are about opening more doors in the creative universe.

Perfume as Conceptual Art

Comme des Garçons Parfums, founded in 1994, approaches scent like it approaches fashion—abstract, challenging, poetic. With scents like “Odeur 53”, which includes notes like "dust on a light bulb" and "oxygen", CDG Parfums throws away the rulebook of conventional fragrance.

These perfumes aren’t just worn—they’re experienced. They are olfactory sculptures—bold, genderless, and unforgettable.

Cultural Impact: Fashion as Philosophy

Comme des Garçons has inspired artists, filmmakers, philosophers, and fashion theorists. Rei Kawakubo’s relentless questioning of norms has made her a cultural figure far beyond the runway. She is one of the few designers ever invited to curate the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Exhibition, titled Rei Kawakubo / Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between (2017).

Her influence can be felt in the genderless fashion movement, in today’s rise of experimental labels, and in the way streetwear has absorbed conceptual fashion.

Comme des Garçons is not just about clothes—it’s about how we see ourselves, and how we challenge what we see.

A Future That Never Stands Still

Rei Kawakubo is in her 80s, yet continues to design every Comme des Garçons collection herself. Unlike legacy brands that fossilize into archives, CDG remains relentlessly modern, never nostalgic, and always searching for the next edge.

With the next generation of designers like Kei Ninomiya (Noir Kei Ninomiya) and Junya Watanabe (formerly under CDG), the house’s philosophy continues to ripple through new voices.

Comme des Garçons is not a trend. It is not a season. It is a living force of creativity that reinvents itself while remaining utterly singular.

Comme des Garçons: Wear Your Mind

To wear Comme des Garçons is to step outside the system. It is to embrace discomfort, provoke thought, and engage with design as dialogue. It's not fashion for everyone—and that's exactly the point.