Comme des Garçons Fall 2011 Ready-to-Wear Collection on Style.com: Runway Review

Comme des Garçons

PARIS, March 5, 2011

By Tim Blanks

According to Rei Kawakubo, gold is the new color, so the Hôtel de la Monnaie was certainly an appropriate venue for her show. But it was more the element's mythological resonance that rang through her show. Her finale was a parade of gold-drenched dryads. Before that climax, she proposed a creature that might equally have been drawn from myth. "Hybrid fashion" was Rei's typically cryptic backstage directive, and you were irresistibly drawn to the circus staple, the half-man, half-woman. Stand the model this way and you had schoolboy jacket and pants; stand her that and you got a silk blouse with a sheer front and a pert nipple to dispose of any gender ambiguity. The half-and-half idea was also offered as a back-and-front proposition: front view, a python trench; back view, frilled shorts. Or back view, a redingote; front view, those frilled shorts with a sheer top.

As with her men's collection for Fall, there was an inescapable sense of Kawakubo collaging fundamental components of fashion into some strange new beast. She took a trenchcoat, for instance, and shredded and balled it into God knows what. There were identifiable fragments of her own past—the fuzzy circles on jackets, the brocades, the cutaway jackets, and, always, the asymmetry. There was also a whole passage of dresses ruched and draped from vintage silk scarves that Kawakubo herself has collected over the years. That in itself was the kind of personal revelation that is virtually impossible to decipher in a Comme collection, but, following on from the men's show, it hinted at a more immediate engagement on the designer's part. A series of silk dresses ruched with black ruffles suggested garters and vestigial luxury, the same make-do, end-of-the-civilized-world spirit that made her men's show such a standout.

See all from Comme des Garçons › Timeline

A.F. Vandevorst	Acne	ADAM
A Détacher	Akris	Alberta Ferretti
Albino	Alexander McQueen	Alexander Wang
Alexandre Herchcovitch	Alexis Mabille	Alice + Olivia
Altuzarra	Andrew Gn	Anna Sui
Ann Demeulemeester	Anne Valérie Hash	Ann-Sofie Back Atelje
Anthony Vaccarello	Antonio Berardi	Antonio Marras
Aquascutum	Aquilano.Rimondi	Araks
Azzaro

Badgley Mischka	Balenciaga	Bally
Balmain	Banana Republic	Band of Outsiders
Barbara Bui	Barbara Tfank	Basso & Brooke
BCBG Max Azria	Behnaz Sarafpour	Bensoni
Betsey Johnson	Betty Jackson	Bibhu Mohapatra
Bill Blass	Blumarine	Bodkin
Bottega Veneta	Brioni	Burberry Prorsum

Cacharel	Calvin Klein Collection	Carlos Miele
Carolina Herrera	Carven	Celine
Central Saint Martins	Chado Ralph Rucci	Chadwick Bell
Chalayan	Chanel	Charles Anastase
Charlotte Ronson	Chloé	Chris Benz
Christian Cota	Christian Dior	Christian Siriano
Christophe Lemaire	Christopher Kane	Christopher Raeburn
Clements Ribeiro	Collette Dinnigan	Comme des Garçons
Commuun	Costello Tagliapietra	Costume National
Creatures of the Wind	Cushnie et Ochs	Custo Barcelona
Cynthia Rowley	Cynthia Steffe

D&G	Damir Doma	Danielle Scutt
Daryl K	David Koma	Dax Gabler
Dennis Basso	Derek Lam	Diane von Furstenberg
Diesel Black Gold	DKNY	Dolce & Gabbana
Donna Karan	Doo.Ri	Douglas Hannant
Dries Van Noten	Dsquared²	Duro Olowu

Edun	Elie Saab	Elie Tahari
Elise Øverland	Emanuel Ungaro	Emilio de la Morena
Emilio Pucci	Emporio Armani	Erdem
Erin Fetherston	Etro