Comme Des Garçons Fall 2011: Hybrid Fashion
Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.
Enclosed in the envelope with the invitation to the Comme des Garçons show last Saturday afternoon, which took place inside a small hall at the Hôtel de la Monnaie, was a small printed card. “Comme des Garçons will have extremely limited seating this season. This is Kawakubo’s design; please kindly understand that your regular seat will not be possible. Thank you.”
And so it was: At the show, there were only two small bleachers and two rows of chairs, which formed a square for the models to traverse perpendicularly to and from one corner.
At any Comme des Garçons show, it is always the fashion that matters, not the hierarchy. It was ironic that a note was sent to the few people invited asking them, in essence, to temporarily suspend their habits. By the time the sound of footsteps on the wooden bleachers ceased and the first model walked out in a long, shiny, black python print trench–without any back but instead tied together at the shoulder–the audience knew they were in for a fashion treat.
