Elizabeth Dee – the creative director and founder of Independent art fair – grew up in rural Midwest flipping through pages of fashion magazines. ‘I knew about Comme des Garçons before I first heard of Donald Judd,’ she tells Wallpaper*. The 17th edition of Dee’s industry-favourite fair, which is also its largest to date with 76 international galleries, pays homage to her first foray into the creative world with a display of 20 Comme des Garçons dresses from the last decade.

Exhibited within a scaffolding of metal bars designed by Rei Kawakubo, the presentation follows the format of a runway show with a long stretch of garments positioned on both sides. Dee, however, notes that the design flips the dynamic between the subject and the viewer by ushering visitors to walk along the runway while outfits fill in the shoes of the audience.

The installation greets the fairgoers right after passing through a medley of thick yellow rubber strips, which stand out as part of D_P_S (Diogo Passarinho Studio)’s overall vision for the fair design. Sculptural and performative, the dresses have been selected by Rei Kawakubo from the fashion house’s last ten years. They overall offer the New York crowd to catch up with Kawakubo’s vision for the first time since The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s seminal exhibition ‘Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between’ in 2017.

A black and white ensemble from the Parisian house’s A/W 2020 collection places the body into a drop-like form in a colour palette reminiscent of the Pagliacci character in the traditional Italian opera. In another piece from last year’s Sping/Summer collection, bulbous forms in varying sizes feature red splashes and wrap the body like a ruby-hued explosion. A S/S 2024 dress is emblazoned with portraits from Rococo paintings with bright blue bows on both sides.

The boundary-pushing 57-year-old Japanese fashion house, which still remains synonymous with the avant-garde, is a fitting collaborator for Independent with its similarly trend-setting outlook. The fair is often considered a platform to explore the current state of the art industry through cutting-edge artists with growing institutional recognition. A self-described ‘not a big art fair fan’, Dee states her exact disinterest in the typical fair format in her decision to launch her own platform where ‘gaps could be filled’. With stands largely displaying solo artist presentations and an attention to balance blue chip visibility with new exposures, the fair’s aura is what the founder compares to Kawakubo’s other venture, Dover Street Market.

‘If Independent could be the Dover Street Market for art fairs, that would be a huge success,’ she says, and adds that she believes in an ‘innovative forward-thinking vision, not just trying to date-stamp where things are today’. The collaboration also follows Comme des Garçons’s recent partnership with Dia Art Foundation and New York sculptor Meg Webster for a pyramid-shaped glass perfume bottle.

Independent runs in New York’s Pier 36, 299 South Street until May 17, 2026.

independenthq.com

A review of the beauty looks from the A/W 2026 season, which finished in Paris earlier this week, contains a surprise: a lot of it was a mess. That’s not a put-down. Rather, the intriguing messiness of the season was deliberate, with even some of the most consistent purveyors of sleek, minimalist beauty, like Hermès and Alaïa, featuring hair that had a ‘I just got out of bed’ quality.

A similar look was seen on the Prada runway, with models in smudged raccoon-eye make-up and hair in half-done ponytails that had strands haphazardly escaping. The show had a novel concept: 15 models, wearing 15 looks, with each model changing four times throughout the show to create a new composition of the previous look. The beauty complemented the idea by suggesting a woman always in motion, always in a rush, too busy to refresh her make-up or even redo her ponytail over the course of the day.

The best beauty looks of A/W 2026

In New York, Collina Strada took messy hair to the next level with hairstylist Mustafa Yanaz giving models bed-heads that looked like they took many sleepless nights to achieve. While in London, the teased, matted hair at Simone Rocha was paired with punk details in, of all places, the eyebrows, such as multiple eyebrow rings and a black-pencilled eyebrow that curved dramatically at the edges. The result was an unkempt, delinquent appearance that complemented the bow, taffeta and glitter-heavy femininity of the clothes.

Yet, when it comes to this season’s messy beauty, no one did it better than the contingent of Japanese designers who show at Paris Fashion Week each season. At Comme des Garçons, hair by Takeo Arai and headpieces designed by HIZUME, combined to create a fascinating, strange beauty, with matted worms of hair – for lack of a better term – emerging from what looked like ripped sheer tights or oily bird’s nests.

At Yohji Yamamoto, black lips were paired with excessively gelled, Siouxsie Sioux-style hair. While at Junya Watanabe, hair stylist Eugene Souleiman and make-up artist Isamaya Ffrench created plastered-down, finger-wave wigs and streaming black eye makeup for a memorable 1920s-flapper-after-a-really-terrible-night look.

A similar look was also seen on the Saint Laurent runway, although more sleekly done, with hair gelled to helmet-like perfection and a flawlessly executed smoky eye and dark red lip (here, though, the inspiration seemed to be the severe beauty of Helmut Newton’s photographs of Saint Laurent in the 1970s). Demna’s first Gucci show also featured contoured cheeks, saturated red lips, and fanned-out smoky eyes. The most noteworthy saturated lips and smoky eye combination, however, was perhaps those at Tom Ford, where the velvet lips engineered by Lucy Bridge were so richly pigmented they looked almost fake.

Speaking of fake, there were those like Matières Fécales and Rick Owens who ostentatiously subverted beauty conventions with the use of prosthetics. The Matières Fécales collection, which satirised the style of the one per cent, translated the ideas behind its clothing into fake black eyes and faces practically deformed by plastic surgery.

While Owens, always one for bold beauty, built on the codes he’s been developing for years with make-up artist Daniel Sällström, to create eyes obscured by colour contacts and extra-long fake lashes that were emphasised by painterly strokes of neon eyeshadow. Sällström was also the make-up artist behind Vaquera’s white painted faces and multi-winged cat eyes, which combined to create a kind of modernised 18th-century aristocrat. The show also featured one model with lime-green pubic hair, which was, if nothing else, memorable.

But when it comes to the most memorable beauty look of the A/W 2026 runways, the winner might be a brand that was more playful than provocative. We are, of course, speaking about one of the most lauded shows of the season: Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore ready-to-wear outing at Chanel.

As the show progressed and the clothes transitioned into more iridescent evening wear, the subtle beauty of the runway looks began to take an iridescent sheen as well. Models’ slicked-back hair appeared covered in a glittery, chromatic coating with matching metallic eye make-up, while one particularly noteworthy look featured long, mermaid-style pastel locks with matching pastel eyeshadow. All in all, a shining end to the season.

Paris Fashion Week culminated yesterday, marking the end of a month-long season of shows that has seen previous stops in New York, London and Milan.

With a nine-day schedule standing at nearly double the length of its counterparts, Paris remains the defining city of fashion month – not least because it comprises shows from fashion’s heavyweight houses, among them Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent (to name just a handful).

After last season’s debuts dominated the S/S headlines, A/W 2026 was about the sophomore show, as designers settled into their positions as creative directors. Without the weight of expectation, we saw some brilliant shows – notably Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Michael Rider at Celine, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe, and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel (all were showing their second ready-to-wear collections).

Here, reported by Wallpaper* fashion & beauty features director Jack Moss and contributing writer India Jarvis, we pick the standout shows that defined the week.

The best of Paris Fashion Week A/W 2026

Dior

Jonathan Anderson staged his A/W 2026 runway show for Dior in Paris’ Jardin des Tuileries, constructing a circular show set around one of the park’s ponds (for the occasion, it had been populated with Monet-esque lily pads, meticulously constructed to look like the real thing), while the invitation comprised miniature versions of the park’s signature green metal chairs. Across the pond’s centre ran an elevated runway, echoing the line of the Tuileries’ Grand Allée, a historic promenade since the park opened to the public in 1667 after a renovation by Louis XIV. It led to a collection about ‘seeing and being seen’, a contemporary imagining of the promenade, ‘[where] a walk in the park becomes a performance’. Cue a ‘panoply of Parisians’ in eclectic, time-hopping attire, from the woozy ruffles of the Belle Époque (here transformed into mini dresses with bouncing trains) to plays on bourgeois tropes, such as fabrics that recalled heritage tweeds, blazers with golden buttons, and shearling jackets reimagined with wave-like hems. What was most striking, though, was a feeling of levity: lily-pad-adorned footwear, polka-dot motifs and crystallised denim were both playful and pretty. ‘Dior has this giant past, and I had to start there,’ Anderson said. ‘Now I feel free to release it from that.’ Jack Moss

READ: Jonathan Anderson’s latest Dior show was a walk in the park

Saint Laurent

A cinematic offering from Anthony Vaccarello unfolded in a simulacrum of a sleek, modernist home; at its centre, a sized-up recreation of a bust that lived in Yves Saint Laurent’s own apartment. Through it strode this season’s Saint Laurent heroine, her heavy-smoked eye and slick, side-parted hair a nod towards Helmut Newton’s Paris Vogue photograph of a model in Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Le Smoking’ tuxedo on Rue Aubriot in 1975. Indeed, tailoring was central to the A/W 2026 collection: eight trouser suits opened the show, while various other iterations appeared throughout (including Vaccarello’s own riff on the tuxedo, worn by model Loli Bahia, who walked exclusively for Saint Laurent this season and closed the show). Here, the silhouette was sloped across the shoulder and narrowed at the waist – though not constricted – for a riff on the power suit that was more ‘insouciant shrug than swagger’. As a counterpoint, Vaccarello looked towards the ‘troubled heroines’ of Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams, as well as Romy Schneider in the 1971 film Max et les Ferrailleurs (she was this season’s protagonist, he said), to capture an ‘elegance tinged with ennui… the beauty of intimacy and vulnerability’. To capture this mood, a series of slips and dresses came in lace coated in silicone, while enormous fur coats had a vivacious confidence. Jack Moss

Dries Van Noten

For many of us, the stylings of awkward adolescence are best not dwelt upon – after all, who looked or felt their best as a teenager? Evidently, Julian Klausner takes a more romantic view of this impressionable time, but, then again, Klausner was likely a more sophisticated brand of teenager than most. In any case, this was the impression given by his A/W 2026 collection for Dries Van Noten, which was inspired in part by a visit to Lycée Carnot, and the memories of being an adolescent ‘work-in-progress’. The Lycée is a Rive Droite public school with alumni including Gilles Deleuze, Guy Debord, and Daft Punk, and its Gustave Eiffel-designed great hall has been the backdrop for numerous Paris fashion shows over the years – in other words, a suitably rarefied and creatively rich starting point.

The 61 looks at Dries Van Noten asked that most teenage question: who am I going to be today? For the confident moment, a navel-bearing button-up knit with a vibrant silk skirt. When a suit of armour is required, a protective duffel coat that does the talking for you. Or maybe one day the mood might be scholastic – collegiate blazer and pleated skirt, but always, always customised, an embellishment here, a contrasting trim there. ‘Just like a pixelated picture, the more one gets far from that time of endless questioning, the clearer it becomes,’ Klausner said, a metaphor he extended through prints with digitally warped 17th-century Flemish still life paintings. Opulent, mature fabrics and finishings were styled with a youthful irreverence best summarised by the final lines from Gala Dragot’s vocal performance, which soundtracked the show: ‘Don’t be too serious... Wear a collar... Keep it blurry though.’ India Jarvis

Acne Studios

If Dries Van Noten was an homage to the experimental attitude of youth, then Acne Studios marked its 30th birthday year with a collection that declared (as one does at 30): I know exactly who I am. A/W 2026 was an affirmation of the house’s irreverent signatures, such as a revival of the particular 1996 cut of jean that made their name, and photographic elements that nod to the brand’s unconventional marketing style, including the bi-annual Acne Paper.

The setting for this season was a succession of intersecting cuboid rooms that, viewed simultaneously from the end of the runway, appeared like a Josef Albers work made three-dimensional. According to Jonny Johansson’s show notes, this was conceived ‘like an enfilade of salons … the portals marking what has come before, and what might follow’. Where a salon in the Parisian tradition might mean a bringing together of clashing or complementary ideas, at Acne Studios, the determination is to blur those boundaries as much as possible. Standout looks saw cropped aviator jackets worn with skin-tight jodhpurs and desirable point-toe pumps, Prince of Wales check jackets worn over one shoulder, and larger-than-life portraits of art school students, taken by Paul Kooiker, printed onto stiff pencil skirts and draped dresses.

Alaïa

Late last year, just after the completion of the Italian house’s sale to Prada, it was announced that Dario Vitale would be leaving his position as creative director of Versace (he lasted a single, but impactful season), to be replaced by Belgian designer Pieter Mulier. It meant that this season’s Alaïa show, watched by designers Matthieu Blazy and Raf Simons, was to be his last: the swansong of a five-year tenure defined by commercial expansion and critical success (he has also established a coterie of model muses, many of whom walked this final show, and will likely follow him to Versace). Held in an intimate showspace in the former Fondation Cartier – Mulier said he wanted it to recall a 1990s pre-iPhone runway show – the collection itself eschewed his more recent experimental silhouettes in favour of stripping things back to the essence of the house, from simple body-contouring tank dresses to lean tailored overcoats, stretch knits, and peplums and ruffles (the last flourishes rendered in Mulier’s contemporary, streamlined style).

‘This collection is about clothes to wear. What is a jacket? What is a dress?’ he said backstage after the show. ‘It’s basically a vocabulary of the last five years. It’s what I learned at Alaïa, that I’m giving to the next designer. It’s like leaving the keys on the table. At Alaïa, I learned precision, editing and [that] real luxury is not what we all think. It is a perfectly cut jacket.’ Jack Moss

READ: Pieter Mulier delivers a swansong collection at Alaïa: ‘It is a vocabulary of the last five years’

Rabanne

Of all the distinct fashions of the long 20th century, it could be argued that 1940s style is the hardest to reference without veering into the territory of costume. Perhaps it’s because boxy tailored silhouettes and victory rolls are so much associated with the vast canon of British war movies, or perhaps because austerity-driven ‘make do’ dressing is antithetical to contemporary fashion at either end of the high-low scale. It’s a testament to Julien Dossena’s eye, then, that for Rabanne A/W 2026 he incorporated patently 1940s-inspired styles – T-bar heels, tea-dress florals, and clashing knitwear – without evoking even a hint of reenactment.

After all, Rabanne has always been a house noted for its futuristic bent. Unconventional, industrial materials, like metal and plastic, are at its very heart, and remained so this season alongside those more vintage ideas – coming together in a collection that the brand called ‘a little louche’. This take on modernist femininity was told through blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpses of a slip through an unbuttoned blouse, a hint of lace underneath a more conservative skirt, and pussybows left suggestively undone. Dossena told Wallpaper* post-show that the character he wanted to build with these contrasts was that of ‘a resistant woman’, and that for him, there was a suggestion of retro-futurism with the 1940s-derived shapes (for example, hair pulled into sculptural pompadour styles was less Vera Lynn and more replicants in Blade Runner). India Jarvis

Rick Owens

What might the cyberpunk cousin of Marlene Dietrich wear for a night on the town? It’s a question that could only be answered by Rick Owens – whose A/W 2026 collection was an homage to the ‘dignified sequence of her life stages’, all shot through with classics from his own particular design language. Think body parts augmented through prosthetics and sci-fi silhouettes in a post-apocalyptic landscape heavy with dry ice and punctuated by magnesium-bright beams of light. Presenting the collection as the second part of ‘Tower’, which premiered during the men's collections, Owens drew from Dietrich’s qualities of ‘steeliness’ and ‘grit’, and interpreted them as sheath-like dresses, abundant piles of faux fur, and flight jackets.

Just as the German star’s enduring legacy was in part a product of her striking collaborations with Josef von Sternberg, Owens is an artist quick to credit the rich input his work receives from his creative partners. This season, much attention has been lovingly devoted to name-checking the hands through which his raw materials pass – from the third-generation, family-run mill in Como, Italy, which weaves a high-performance fibre called Kevlar (purportedly five-times stronger than steel), to the Veneto-region wash house committed to reducing water waste, which treats industrial indigo canvas. India Jarvis

Loewe

Presented on a bright-yellow runway populated by German artist Cosima Von Bonin’s plush figures of clams, octopi and dogs, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s sophomore Loewe collection was a welcome jolt of energy on the Friday morning of Paris Fashion Week. ‘What is fashion but an open field for endless creative play?’ said the American designers, whose poppy A/W 2026 collection translated their colourful beach-ready debut for the winter months, resulting in a riot of curvy dégradé shearling parkas, 3D-printed slips and shaggy-hemmed dresses with trailing trains. Other elements had a sporting feel – like face-shielding sunglasses, boldly coloured anoraks and chunky riffs on half-zip ski sweaters – while inflatable elements meant garments could be transformed in size and proportion (a lobster-claw-shaped pump, shown at the re-see the following day, will be sold separately).

Such experiments were made possible by the abilities of the Loewe atelier, particularly when it came to leather: bouclé overcoats were made from intricate loops of leather yarn, while the gradient shearlings were treated ‘in the same manner as poodle grooming’. ‘As we began [creating] our second collection, we were struck by a simple truth: for us, the act of making is, at its core, an expression of joy – an intellectual, process-driven pursuit charged with playfulness,’ said the designers. ‘The path taken matters as much as the end result. It is the idea of play as rigorous experimentation and problem-solving, moving between instinct and experience, between a devotion to craft and its endless opportunities for innovation.’ Jack Moss

Issey Miyake

For Satoshi Kondo, the role of designer is as much about relinquishing control as it is wielding it. Knowing when to hold back, not to overstep the mark, to let the materials speak for themselves. This was the credo he brought to the fore for Issey Miyake’s A/W 2026 offering – a characteristically Japanese recognition of innate, simple beauty.

Titled ‘Creating, Allowing’, the collection navigated this specific tension understood by designers through pieces where the artist’s hand was inserted sparingly, never tampering with the true essence of the fabrication, only enhancing. At its best, this looked like expanses of cloth cut with technical lines that left their impression on the negative space, like the wine-coloured single-breasted coat with inbuilt cape that the model held up over her shoulders to exaggerate its rectangular construction. The innate movement of the house-signature pleats was used only intermittently and, instead, dramatically inflexible lacquered washi paper was introduced through breast plates, bodices and belts – creating a contrast between motion and restriction. Kondo’s intention with this was that the most important impact was made through the human frame, by ‘minimising design intervention and leaving the form-making to the wearer's own body’.

As for the space itself, the Carrousel du Louvre was transformed with a layer of silvery sand and ‘finely shredded aluminum foil, [serving] as a device for the interaction between "material", "people", and "clothing"’. This surface became marked and patterned as the models moved across it, another allusion to Kondo’s metaphor of ‘considered disruption’. India Jarvis

Lanvin

This year marks the centenary of menswear at the house of Lanvin – a celebration that filtered into the season’s womenswear outing through nods to the boyish silhouettes that characterised interwar ladies’ fashion. It was a time when overtly feminine curves were flattened into straight lines from bust to waist, creating an elongated, athletic outline that came to epitomise the emancipated New Woman.

Peter Copping, who took the reins at Lanvin in late 2024, imagined ‘a dialogue between generations’, which came together beautifully to meld the concerns of Jeanne Lanvin’s customers in the 1920s with those who shop the brand in the present. What do they have in common? Evidently, a love of opera – gloves were cuffed and elbow-length, and belted opera coats were voluminous enough to be worn over an evening gown, and trimmed with faux fur. They wear hats (Jeanne Lanvin’s first foray into fashion was as an apprentice milliner), with A/W 2026’s borrowing from cloche shapes but with exaggerated sou’wester-style brims. They favour a dash of restrained glamour. If some of the cuts leaned slightly austere, they were countered with an opulence of fabric and finish: hand-embroidered bead droplets, inky velvets, laser-cut fringes.

Lanvin is the oldest French maison still in operation, its HQ still in its original site – therefore, the weight of its legacy must hang heavily over every designer who takes its helm. Its founder insisted on le chic ultime, a phrase that surely needs no translation, and which is no small order. It is a comfort that, for every moment of reinvention it undergoes, Lanvin is still a place that women can go to for guaranteed elegance. India Jarvis

Givenchy

The idea of individual style was a throughline of Paris Fashion Week, one expressed by Sarah Burton with her third collection for Givenchy – the former Alexander McQueen designer’s most liberated outing yet (and, as a result, her best). ‘How can we put ourselves back together in the world we’re living in?’ was the question Burton asked this season, elucidating after the show that she was thinking about the multiplicities of a contemporary woman’s life (as such, it found a companion with the Prada show in Milan, where Miuccia Prada asserted that ‘as a woman, your life is layered – each day demands not only a shifting of clothes, but a richness of identities within yourself’). So there was some typically brilliant tailoring (Burton is known for her prowess in the medium, and has recently brought over her tailoring team from Alexander McQueen), though also more vivid expressions of style – a dress, hanging from razor-thin straps, in bright yellow leather; shimmering leopard spots that burst into tassels; silk T-shirts that had been refashioned by Stephen Jones into headpieces – as well as oversized riffs on carpenter jeans, off-the-shoulder bombers, and high-collared white shirts. ‘I wanted to make it feel very personal,’ said Burton. ‘Each woman is her own person, each silhouette is her own character.’ Jack Moss

Junya Watanabe

Junya Watanabe lets the clothes do the talking. The A/W 2026 collection was accompanied by show notes that came to two single sentences: ‘The Art of Assemblage Couture explores form born from pure creative instinct, free from conventional notions of dressmaking. Through the direct presentation of raw materials, this approach expresses the surrounding social environment.’ This succinct summary belied a frenzy of ideas, which played out over one of the most entertaining shows of the week.

Classic couture silhouettes were fashioned from a mish-mash of consumer goods and mass-produced garments. The opening look, worn by Irina Shayk, comprised a gown in a 1950s prom style, constructed from gloves, with a mesh flounce. A puff-sleeved dress, with a squared neckline and a central slit that showed a silver interior, appeared to be made from a gold Mylar blanket – its creased folds still visible, like it had just been ripped from its packet. Another dress used kitschily patterned curtains, pinch pleats and all, for its full, trained skirt, while its bodice was made from – what else? – scrap number plates.

So far, so Watanabe, but this season offered more in the way of spectacle than just unconventional materials. In a more choreographed display than usual, Watanabe called in the services of Poland-born movement director Pat Boguslawski. He directed a languid yet melodramatic routine for Watanabe’s models, who threw garments onto chairs with tango-inspired passion, and turned their heads with the kind of simpering doe-eyed expressiveness of silent movie starlets. This reference was reinforced through Eugene Souleiman’s hair design, sculpted curls slicked to the foreheads and cheeks in the manner of Josephine Baker, and glam make-up by Isamaya Ffrench – winged, heavy-lashed and sometimes tear-streaked eyes. India Jarvis

Celine

It hasn’t taken long for Michael Rider to define a signature look at Celine: a preppy, uptown-inflected uniform that feels like a vision of Parisian style through American eyes (Rider had worked at Celine previously, under Phoebe Philo, though more recently headed up US label Polo Ralph Lauren). And it has worked: his collections thus far have felt like you could wear them off the runway and straight onto the street, full of clever riffs on quotidian pieces that will no doubt be much copied by lesser brands (they have also been full of great accessories, from abundant charm bracelets to colourful handbags and slipper-like loafers). For A/W 2026, Rider continued his upward trajectory with a show held at the Institut de France amid a series of beautiful modernist speakers in wood and metal, presenting a collection that favoured perennial style over ephemeral trends. ‘Celine is a style: a mix of old and new that feels urgent and dreamy,’ said Rider. ‘Making the things we all dream of finding and wearing.’ And in among this ready-to-wear wardrobe (in the truest sense), flourishes of the playful and the romantic emerged, from enormous sequins and flashes of animal print to feathered headpieces and bold punctuations of colour. ‘Putting on clothes, a look, can change the day – [it can] change how we walk and feel,’ said Rider. ‘I love that.’ Jack Moss

Hermès

Staged on a runway of moss and soil (strangely, a trend of the week, later seen at Miu Miu and Louis Vuitton), Nadège Vanhée’s latest outing for Hermès saw her conjure what she called a ‘liminal realm’ between dawn and dusk, earth and space. It lent the collection an alien, otherworldly feel: models emerged from glowing orbs and looped around the Garde Républicaine show space on an inky runway, which also inspired the clothing’s palette of deep blues, greys and black. Mashing up the equestrian codes that remain at the heart of Hermès – here, sliced-away jodhpurs-cum-cycling shorts, dressage blazers and knee-high leather boots – with lean, futuristic silhouettes, it was a clever hybrid of the past, present and future, a liminal realm of Vanhée’s own. Ostrich and leather jump suits, with contrasting knit sleeves, were the season’s show pieces – the result of the house’s superlative leather atelier, they straddled sex appeal and function – while visible zips added an almost sci-fi feel, running down the front of dresses or slicing across the chest of a jacket. Prints came via AM Cassandre, an art deco artist, and saw clouds intersected by a geometric structure – a reflection of Vanhée’s own juxtapositions between the graphic and the elemental. Jack Moss

Comme des Garçons

A strong Comme des Garçons collection saw Rei Kawakubo find solace in her favoured colour, black, which – save for a brief interlude in bright, candy pink – made up the majority of the A/W 2026 collection. And, while recent collections have seen Kawakubo grapple with tumultuous world affairs, the choice of the colour was not necessarily to represent grief or mourning – instead, the Japanese designer said it captured the expansiveness of the creative process. ‘I have come to realise that, after all, black is the colour for me,’ she said in a typically brief statement issued to the press. ‘It’s just the strongest, the best for creation, and the colour that embodies the rebellious spirit. And has the biggest meaning: the universe and the black hole.’ Indeed, the use of a single colour allowed Kawakubo’s typically provocative forms to come to the fore: this season, pillow-like constructions draped in semi-sheer black tulle, undulating pile-ups of shirred ruffles and tassels, or saucer-shaped protusions that looped around the upper body. Like any Comme collection, it was a Rorschach test – revelling in the unfamiliar, Kawakubo always challenges you to draw your own conclusions. Jack Moss

Balenciaga

Of all the creative directors at the nascent stages of new tenures, Pierpaolo Piccioli might have one of the steepest mountains to climb at Balenciaga. In the 16 years he spent at Valentino, prior to taking this new position in the spring of 2025, he demonstrated a Cristóbal Balenciaga-worthy approach to dressmaking that prioritised proportion and colour. But while Piccioli was sending out breathtaking confections of ballooning silk taffeta at Valentino, Balenciaga the brand was being injected with a new edge, at the hand of Vetements-founder Demna, whose zeitgeist-defining designs were laced with subversion and irony. How to bring the grandeur and romance that are Piccioli’s calling cards, without alienating the new demographic of customers who flocked to the brand under Demna?

For this season, his second collection, Piccioli pinned his hopes on a collaboration with Sam Levinson – the creator of Euphoria, the teen drama responsible for making internationally recognised stars out of its cast, which includes Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Hunter Schafer. Audiences at the Balenciaga A/W 2026 show were treated to a preview of clips from the HBO show’s third series (airing publicly in April), which played on screens across the venue; its interplay of light and dark was found running through the collection, which Piccioli had titled ‘ClairObscur’. The collection itself was a largely black affair, in light-catching high-gloss fabrics, punctuated by the occasional neon-toned print that harkened to Euphoria's colour-saturated visual style. If Euphoria – boundary-pushing, youth-orientated, and ever so slightly contentious – feels more spiritually within Demna’s wheelhouse than Piccioli’s, the High Renaissance references (‘ClairObscur’ is a play on clair-obscur or chiaroscuro, the artistic style beloved by Mannerist painters, which manifests as dramatically contrasting tones to create intense depth) brought proceedings firmly back into Piccioli’s world. India Jarvis

READ: Balenciaga taps Euphoria’s Sam Levinson for A/W 2026

Jean Paul Gaultier

After the shock factor of his debut last season – one which divided both critics and online commentators with its barely-there silhouettes and trompe l’oeil prints of nude bodies – Dutch designer Duran Lantink seemed to hit his stride this season, using his eye for the surreal and the sculptural to create a disruptive cast of archetypes, from the raver to the cowboy. Marlene Dietrich (or, more specifically, a treasured mesh T-shirt printed with the filmstar that Lantink had found in a vintage shop) was one figure on the moodboard, inspiring the clever opening tailoring, which came with jutting folds and sculpted lapels, while also being printed on a dress installed with dry ice (a nod to her favoured vice – cigarettes). The designer said she was a master in subverting tropes: ‘dominant, sexy and graceful, the ultimate hybrid’ – a mood that informed the shape-shifting collection. Tailoring metamorphosed into tech-y sportswear, trompe-l’oeil bodysuits of artist’s dummies were overlaid with lingerie, and puffer jackets became bodysuits. ‘It’s a spirit that suits the house of Gaultier, a place where the world is perpetually turned upside down,’ said Lantink via press notes. ‘Feminine and masculine, inside out, vintage and new, underwear as outerwear, technical and tailored all at once.’ Jack Moss

Chanel

Matthieu Blazy said that his sophomore ready-to-wear collection began with a quote from house founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel. ‘Fashion is both caterpillar and butterfly. Be a caterpillar by day and a butterfly by night,’ she said. ‘There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly.’ It seemed an apt description for Blazy’s own vision for Chanel thus far, one which elevates the quotidien through expressive acts of craft, and finds joy in both the functional and the glamorous. These are special clothes, no doubt (as anyone who has had the chance to see them up close can attest), though they are designed to be worn, not simply exalted. As such, he will no doubt be satisfied by the busy shop floors earlier this week as his debut collection landed (it was an ongoing fashion-week talking point), and more so to see those purchases worn by attendees to the show on Monday evening (and not just by the usual high-spending customers, but editors and stylists alike).

Staged amid a series of vast primary-coloured cranes – Blazy is, after all, still in the process of constructing his Chanel – the designer’s A/W 2026 collection was a brilliant and comprehensive exercise in wardrobing, which, to borrow Coco Chanel’s categorisation spanned the ‘caterpillar’ (roomy blazers, tweeds reformulated into lumberjack-style overshirts, simple jersey dresses), but also the ‘butterfly’. The latter came in an extraordinary stream of lustrous, colour-sturated looks at the end of the show, loaded with embellishment – appliqué flowers, lace and beads – and matched with models’ pastel-coloured or metallic hair. Over the 78 looks, there was a multitude of iterations of the Chanel woman, and the accessories to match (from gleaming metallic court shorts, to squashy crescent-shaped bags that recalled croissants). ‘Chanel is day, Chanel is night. It represents the freedom to choose between the caterpillar and the butterfly whenever you want,’ said Blazy. ‘I wish to create a canvas for women to be unapologetically who they are and who they want to be.’ Jack Moss

READ: Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore Chanel collection is made for ‘women to be unapologetically who they are’

Louis Vuitton

Nicolas Ghesquière staged his A/W 2026 collection for Louis Vuitton amid a show set by Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle, seeing rolling green hills – like those found in pastoral landscapes – abstracted into a series of sharp, futuristic peaks. The collection itself had a similar rationale, drawing inspiration from nature – ‘mountains, forests, plains’, and the clothing traditionally used to live among such elemental landscapes – and reimagining them through a series of Ghesquière’s typically idiosyncratic, time-travelling silhouettes. The idea of expedition seemed a throughline – supersized-wide-shouldered jackets, shearling hats and furry-hooded duffel coats seemed primed for protection, while bags hung on leather staffs like bindles – though there was a ceremonial feel to garments, which recalled traditional rural dress (though, in Ghesquière style, they were mashed up in such a way that the references were hard to place). ‘It is not an escape from our realities, but an echo of them,’ said Ghesquière of the vivid collection, which also featured the ‘urban pastoral’ works of Ukrainian artist Nazar Strelyaev-Nazarko. ‘[It is] a new folklore, for the future.’ Jack Moss

Miu Miu

Miuccia Prada has long interrogated a woman’s place in the world: how they move through it, and a wardrobe that feels reflective of their needs. For A/W 2026, she was thinking about the ‘smallness of the body’ – not in its physical proportions, but in opposition with the vastness of the world around us. It feels like a response to our current era of overload: the runway at Palais d’Iéna was covered in a layer of soil and moss, a reminder that beyond the pomp and ceremony of luxury fashion, we are simply humans living in communion with the earth (as a seatmate commented, perhaps this was her instruction to ‘touch grass’). ‘I am obsessed with the smallness of the body – in a human sense, the contrast between ourselves, our bodies and the vastness of that which surrounds us,’ she said. ‘Who we are, and the scale and magnitude of what we have to face. This collection is not about fragility – there is a confidence, and a strength. But always about a confrontation between a human and the expansiveness of the world.’

As such, the collection segued between moments of strength and intimacy: for the former, enveloping trapper hats, hiking shoes and sporty shearling-lined parkas, for the latter, slip dresses, satin shoes and bejewelled embellishment. There felt something of the 1990s to it: not only in the more minimal looks, which intersected the middle of the show, but in that contrast between glamour and utility (a parka over a mini dress; a studded handbag; a block heel), and also the appearance of Chloë Sevigny, a longtime house muse who first walked for Miu Miu in 1996. She was joined by a coterie of ‘individuals’ on the runway, from models Gemma Ward and Kristen McMenamy to the actress Gillian Anderson, who closed the show. Jack Moss

READ: Miu Miu’s all-star cast for A/W 2026 featured Gillian Anderson and Chloë Sevigny

The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne has a long history of putting two artists in conversation through the institution’s blockbuster exhibitions – the gallery is the most-visited in Australia – from Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei in 2015 to Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in 2019. ‘The exciting thing with these projects is that they enable a rich and deep exploration of the work of each designer and then the additional exciting prospect of exploring the point of convergence – or indeed divergence – between the two,’ says Danielle Whitfield, one of the institution’s curators.

Whitfield’s latest project, alongside Katie Somerville – another curator in the NGV’s fashion and textiles department – brings this idea of ‘conversation’ to the world of style, imagining a dialogue between two of its most influential designers, Rei Kawakubo and Vivienne Westwood. Both towering figures of the avant-garde – and both proudly anti-establishment – Somerville says they were chosen for their ‘innovative and visionary’ approach and ‘shared spirit of rebellion’. Born a year apart, in Tokyo, Japan and Derbyshire, United Kingdom, respectively, their careers would run in parallel: in 1969, Kawakubo would found her label Comme des Garçons, while two years later in London, Westwood opened her first shop, ‘Let it Rock’ on the King’s Road with Malcolm McLaren.

Over the decades which followed, the two designers would challenge fashion’s status quo: for Westwood, first by defining the aesthetics of punk, and later by playfully riffing on historical attire, from corsets to crinoline – the sugary sensuality of François Boucher’s portraiture was a perennial reference – while for Kawakubo, rebellion largely came through form. This was memorably encapsulated in her S/S 1997 collection for Comme des Garçons, which has been affectionately titled ‘Lumps and Bumps’ for the way its garments feature protusions of padding to warp the shape of the body. ‘It is more important, I think, to translate thought into action rather than to worry about if one’s clothes are worn in the end,’ she said of the collection in 2005. ‘This is probably why the collection stimulated strong feelings in many people.’

While Kawakubo and Westwood did meet in 1974, when Kawakubo visited Westwood and McLaren’s SEX shop, and undertook a little-known collaboration in 2002, whereby archival Vivienne Westwood silhouettes were remade in Comme des Garçons fabrics, the pair largely circulated each other's work through mutual respect. Westwood would admire Kawakubo’s ‘punk spirit’, and both designers chose Paris to hold their runway shows, which remains the case for Comme des Garçons (Kawakubo hosts biannual mens and womenswear shows). After her death in December 2022, Westwood’s eponymous label continues under her husband Andreas Kronthaler, who also shows a collection twice-yearly in Paris.

‘The affinity between Westwood and Kawakubo lies in their desire to rewrite the ‘rules’ of dress,’ says Whitfield, who curated ‘Westwood Kawakubo’ alongside Somerville. ‘Generationally, they occupy the same slice of fashion history, working from the early 1970s onwards. I think what unites them, is that their work is about creative and social freedom; they have tackled similar themes in their work such as challenging conventions of beauty, taste and gender – and both, though self-taught, are deeply committed to the craft of making, consistently experimenting with cut and form.’

The impetus for the exhibition, which was opened with a starry gala co-chaired by musician Troye Sivan this past weekend, came largely from the NGV’s collection, which had already amassed a large collection of the two designers’ work (for Westwood, it currently holds 112 works; for Kawakubo, 308). Putting them together for the first time was a chance for a ‘compelling narrative’, says Somerville, which in the exhibition unfolds over five thematic sections (these sections are titled ‘Punk and Provocation’, ‘Rupture’, ‘Reinvention’, ‘The Body’ and ‘The Power of Cloth).

And, while there is a clear affinity between the designers, the curators say that their divergences prove just as intriguing. ‘There are great differences aesthetically in how they execute and express their vision,’ says Whitfield. ‘I would say Westwood makes use of parody and perversity, and her references are more literal, while Kawakubo's gaze is inward, and more conceptual and abstract.’

The scenography of the show straddles the ‘lush and immersive’ – like an illustrated simulacrum of an 18th-century salon or a room enveloped in red carpeting – and something more spare and industrial (brushed aluminium displays feature, while another room sees a series of screens running along raw concrete corridors). The Comme des Garçons mannequins were all dressed personally by the brand’s in-house team, who flew in from Japan for the occasion, while the Westwood garments are accompanied with shoes and headpieces, many of which were created by longtime collaborator, the British milliner Stephen Jones. Alongside, a series of ephemera – from magazines and mail-outs to archival film clips – provides a visual timeline of the two designers’ work.

‘There are so many ways that Westwood and Kawakubo have left an imprint on fashion today. I think the short answer is that they have both changed the way we see fashion and understand beauty,’ says Whitfield of their respective legacies. ‘They have shown us the power of fashion to protest orthodoxy and well as its capacity to liberate us from convention. I hope that visitors will come away inspired by their creativity, originality, bravery, and artistic vision.’

‘Westwood Kawakubo’ runs at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) until 9 April 2026.

Paris Fashion Week A/W 2025 took over the French city this week with a packed schedule of runway shows from industry titans – among them Dior, Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, Chanel and Givenchy, the last marking the much-anticipated debut of former Alexander McQueen designer Sarah Burton.

Her opening gambit for the storied Parisian house took place on Friday morning (7 March 2025), seeing Burton draw inspiration from a cache of long-hidden patterns by house founder Hubert de Givenchy, reimagining his signatures for the woman of today. ‘I want to address everything about modern women,’ she said. ‘Strength, vulnerability, emotional intelligence, feeling powerful or very sexy. All of it.’

Elsewhere, Haider Ackermann made his debut at Tom Ford on Wednesday evening (5 March), having succeeded Peter Hawkings earlier this year; Julian Klausner held his first show as creative director of Dries Van Noten at the Opéra Garnier (also on Wednesday), while Alessandro Michele unveiled his sophomore ready-to-wear collection for Valentino in a surreal, red-hued ‘public bathroom’ (those awaiting Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, though, will have to wait until September for his official arrival).

A handful of intriguing younger names also populated the schedule, including LVMH Prize-winning designers Duran Lantink and Hodakova, while the usual contingent of Japanese designers – among them Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya – presented typically thought-provoking collections on Saturday (8 March 2025).

Here, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss – with additional reporting from Orla Brennan – unpacks the best of Paris Fashion Week A/W 2025.

Saint Laurent

A ‘simplicity of silhouette – as if created with a few pencil strokes’ is how Anthony Vaccarrello described his masterful A/W 2025 collection for Saint Laurent, which replaced Louis Vuitton this season as Paris Fashion Week’s finale. Now adept at visual spectacle – sleek, monolithic runway sets have become a hallmark of his tenure – Vaccarrello staged this season’s show on what he called ‘a grand onyx oval’, the oil-slick black runway surrounded by panels of mineral rock.

The collection itself was an exercise in singularity, the mining of a silhouette over and over: from the broad shoulder and raised neckline of the collection’s opening looks (this season achieved without use of padding, but instead through the garment’s construction) towards enormous full skirted-gowns, which despite their grandeur, recalled nighties or slips (‘I really liked this idea of elasticity, of movement—all to give a sense of freedom,’ he said). A richness of fabric and colour enlivened these singular looks, from guipere lace and richly-hued satin to a plasticky animal-print material achieved by dipping printed cigaline silk into resin. It made for a transfixing closing act. JM

Miu Miu

Earlier this month in Milan, Miuccia Prada – alongside co-creative director Raf Simons – presented an A/W 2025 Prada collection titled ‘Raw Glamour’. ‘We asked ourselves – what is feminine? What is feminine beauty?’ the designer said at the time, conjuring a dishevelled elegance which confronted notions of conventional beauty. At Miu Miu, the designer – here working solo – continued that interrogation of womanhood with a collection which saw her evoke the symbolic markers of feminine dress, from fur stoles and pointed bras to handbags and heels. ‘These accessories of femininity – bras, furs, brooches – they are things we have had forever. Are they relevant today? Do they lift us up?’

The resulting collection captured a mood of bourgeois Milanese glamour: oversized overcoats were worn with a ‘fur’ stole thrown over the arm and ladylike handbag nestled in its crook, delicate ribbed socks worn with shuffling brown loafers, while blazers were pinned with brooches on each side of the chest. ‘I don’t see these things as clichés,’ she asserted backstage, though they were presented here in disruptive manner: from the pointed bra tops which jutted outwards from beneath delicate, sugary knits, to the construction of the tailoring which was folded strangely at the chest or cut to fall purposely off the shoulder (other jackets were cropped as if sliced in half).

Played out in a surreal showspace covered in girlish yellow moiré on a cast which included actress Sarah Paulson and musician Cortisa Star, these ‘accessories of femininity’ were recast as objects of power – a provocative pitch for independence from the perception-shifting designer. ‘We need femininity in this difficult time to lift us up,’ she said. JM

Kiko Kostadinov

Laura and Deanna Fanning staged their A/W 2025 show for Kiko Kostadinov in Brasserie Mollard – a 130-year-old restaurant on Rue Saint-Lazare covered in its original Belle Époque gilded tiling, where guests were seated around white linen-covered tables as if about to have lunch. The charm of the largely unchanged eatery set the perfect scene for the identical twin design duo’s latest collection, which explored the ‘rakish’ spirit of discovering yourself in a new city. Their muse for the season was Vali Myers, an Australian dancer who moved among Paris’ bohemian set in the 1950s, imagining her ‘gallivanting bravely through the city as the sun rises, just a topcoat thrown over a slip’.

The resulting collection was one of the sisters’ sexiest yet. Taking shape around vintage women’s underpinnings, pointed bras and structured crinolines gave the body an angular sensuality, while a louche softness emerged in lingerie-informed abstract paisley appliqués, liquid darted blouses, and ultra-thin knitwear layers that clung close to the skin. Always offsetting the girly with something rougher, the Fannings looked to the rebellious Teddy Girls – working-class teenagers in 1950s London who wore Victorian-era menswear – and the masculine layering of the modern ‘tomboy’. Suiting and shirting came in skew-whiff shapes and piratey stripes, baggy Japanese denim was splattered with paint, and rounded batwing jackets and tiny cigarette trousers were fastened with rope. Textures and colours, meanwhile, were eccentrically mashed – mohair, moleskin, and alpaca came in primary colours merged with earthy tones – while accessories took on ‘personalities’, from a doctor’s bag to a sprite’s pointed cap.

A display of depth and originality, the collection affirmed the sister’s confidence in the Kiko Kostadinov woman they have been building together since 2018 – one that has been embraced by a devoted community of women around the world. ‘We are thinking of women taking up their bodies, being sexual and monumental, strong minded and soft,’ they said following the show. ‘Finding a path for oneself in the in-between of opposites, the way only a woman can.’ OB

Chanel

A monumental installation by Canadian designer Willo Perron, evocative of an unfurled black ribbon – a perennial Chanel signature – backdropped the house’s A/W 2025 collection. Designed by Chanel’s ‘Creation Studio’ as the house awaits the arrival of Matthieu Blazy (the former Bottega Veneta designer will not present his first collection until September), it was a collection designed to ‘alter perceptions’, whether through size and proportion, or illusory tricks. This was largely achieved through reimagining Chanel emblems – from pearls, ribbons and bows to quilted handbags and tweed suits – in imaginative ways, whether enormous pearl necklaces worn like a sash (they were actually handbags), shimmering trompe l’oeil bows, or cleverly layered tweed ‘three pieces’, comprising a shrunken jacket, wrap skirt and loose-cut trousers worn at once. The idea of illusion continued in degradé ‘denim’ shirts and jeans in printed chiffon, while sheer tulle overlays – sitting over tailored jackets and dresses – had a spectral effect. The result was a collection both playfully surreal and reassuringly Chanel, the perfect placeholder as we await Blazy’s much-anticipated ready-to-wear debut next season. JM

Louis Vuitton

Presenting to just 400 guests – a relatively intimate showcase by Louis Vuitton standards – Nicolas Ghesquière staged his A/W 2025 collection for the house at L’Étoile du Nord, the headquarters of France’s national railway, just next door to Gare du Nord train station. ‘Recreating the bustling atmosphere of a Parisian train station – where fleeting moments are shared between strangers, weaving a tapestry of stories’, the designer explained of the roots of the collection, which played out in a set by Es Devlin, featuring rows of colourful metal seating – a surreal play on the furniture of waiting rooms or train platforms – while film projections of the shadows of travellers-on-the-move appeared around the upper windows of the building’s atrium.

As such, the collection itself comprised a series of characters one might encounter at a train station – albeit with Ghesquière’s eclectic, postmodern sheen. There were colourful raincoats and anoraks, some with a sporty Louis Vuitton logo; business-like trenches and pussybow ties; futuristic ‘uniforms’ recalling those of conductors or attendants; while expressions of old-world glamour, from twisting turban headwear to glittering fur coats and flouncy ruffled dresses recalled what Ghesquière called ‘the excitement of 19th-century rail travel… [a world of] adventure and enchantment.’ Bags, unsurprisingly, were a highlight – slouchy holdalls, slung over the shoulder, met violin and hat cases, blanket bags and vanity boxes – while the cover of Kraftwerk’s 1977 album ‘Trans-Europe Express’ became a motif throughout the collection.

‘The euphoria of discovery… the exhilaration of travel,’ Ghesquière described of the show, which culminated in the models watching over the space from the atrium’s balconies. ‘The enthusiasm of departure or the comfort of return.’ JM

Sacai

This season, Sacai’s Chitose Abe was thinking about the rituals of dressing with a collection titled ‘One Tender Moment’. Namely, the idea of ‘wrapping’ – how we wrap fabrics around our body for warmth, protection or comfort. As ever, this was achieved through adept pattern cutting (she worked as a pattern maker for both Comme des Garçons and Junya Watanabe before starting her own label), with garments which twisted and looped around the body, like the blazer transforming into forms reminiscent of capes or enormous scarves. The silk foulard was a symbolic motif of the collection’s thrown-on mood, transforming into twisted handkerchief dresses or inset into jackets. Meanwhile, flourishes of adornment – from faux-feather appliqué to oversized paillettes – gave the collection an insouciant, sensual glamour, which Abe said was also reflected in the evocation of Man Ray’s teardrop works in ‘photo stitch’ embroidery. ‘[They] highlight the lips and the eyes – the purest essence of sensual beauty,’ she said. JM

Rokh

Rok Hwang designs his clothes for shy girls – women who might not be the loudest in the room, but who want their wardrobe to relay a certain strength about who they are. This season, the Korean-American designer and Celine alum (Hwang was at the brand during the Phoebe Philo years) explored the idea of ‘Fractured Motion’, applying his signature style of deconstruction and poetic drape to a muted, chalky wardrobe that played with ideas of fragility. Guests were invited to a crumbling French maison to see the show unfold, its rough grandeur setting the stage for a collection that balanced structure and spontaneity. Rather than lean into pure romance, Hwang subverted the tropes of classic tailoring, turning rigid forms into fluid sculptures. Wool coats bloomed into floral shapes, sculptural dresses clung and collapsed in unexpected ways, and layered fabrics gave the feeling of perpetual motion. A series of body pieces were Hwang’s most theatrical – strict, corset-like structures with unravelling edges, and illusion pieces that made models’ torsos resemble the marble busts of Rodin. A love letter to the sensitive souls who have supported his brand since he launched in 2016, this was Hwang at his most experimental and refined. It was about ‘tradition and boldness silently told,’ he said of the collection following the show. OB

Valentino

Alessandro Michele brought his flair for the theatrical to his sophomore ready-to-wear outing for Valentino, which unfolded in a specially constructed showspace at Paris’ Institut du Monde Arabe. Evocative of an enormous public bathroom – cubicles ran around the edge of the room, as did sinks and mirrors – the red-hued space provided a surreal but cinematic backdrop for a show exploring ‘ideas of private and public, surfaces and depths’ (Michele called the set ‘Lynchian’). Titled ‘Le Méta-Théâtre des Intimités’, the designer explained in his typically esoteric show notes (references included the philosophers Romano Màdera and Ludwig Wittgenstein), that this was a show about intimacy as performance: before the models emerged from the swinging cubicles, we saw glimpses of feet from beneath the door, as if the person inside was stood in the nude.

It set the stage for a sensually charged collection from the designer: undone lace body suits were inset with narrow satin bras, 1970s-style dresses in clashing shades of red and pink, while thrown-on ‘fur’ coats had a hedonistic glamour. If not stripped back – Michele remains a maximalist at heart – there felt like new clarity to this collection, pulling back some of the more extraneous flourishes of last season towards a harder vision of glamour. Indeed, the collection felt like it was unfolding in the bathroom of a nightclub, with models prowling the space, checking their outfits in the sink mirrors, before disappearing away back into the cubicles. What they were doing inside – and with whom – was left to the imagination. ‘The deepest intimacy is theatre,’ Michele concluded, having put on his own thrilling – and seductive – show. JM

Akris

The vaulted main hall of Le Collège des Bernardins, a former Cistercian refectory, was flooded with blue light for Albert Kriemler’s latest Akris outing, which celebrated the evocative power of the hue. Titled ‘The Blue Hour’, the designer called it ‘a story of clarity, of euphoria, of blue – blue in nature, blue in spaces, blue in artworks, just blue,’ which began by thinking about the moment ‘when day and night cross.’ As such, garments melded codes of day and eveningwear: a macintosh-style jacket, sliced away at the waistline, was reimagined in rich midnight-blue velvet, a ribbed-knit sweater worn with a floating organza skirt, while a zip-up hoodie was adorned with hundreds of iridescent blue paillettes. Feathers were a motif that ran throughout, whether sprouting from a high-heeled pump or in blue and black waves across the collection’s closing look. Kriemler said he wanted them to ‘evolve with movement, continuously changing as they follow the body [and] right to the next party.’ JM

Balenciaga

Demna staged his latest collection on a darkened, labyrinthine runway with ‘multiple entrances and exits’ which the Georgian designer likened to the way you can lose yourself in the creative process. Though having established such a design signature of the house, namely a subversive take on wardrobe archetypes, this was a collection which saw Demna continue, clear-minded and defiant, down his own path. He called the collection, which attendees viewed from up close (everyone had a front-row seat), a study of ‘standard dress codes, and what it takes to twist standard fits and garments into a fashion context… a sociological observation of the wardrobe.’ As such, the catalogue of looks – which moved between sharp, corporate attire, twisted sportswear (a collaboration with Puma featured) and dishevelled eveningwear, with lace and polka dot dresses hiked up to reveal the leg – felt like a revisiting of Demna’s greatest hits, albeit here with new rigour (he talked about a ‘pursuit of the golden ratio… a rethinking of standards’). Highlights included a series of furry-hooded puffer jackets whereby the quilting had been cleverly reworked to recall the shape of a corset or bodice, or tailoring with deep, in-set creases – reminders of the designer’s potent ability to reimagine the familiar anew. JM

Duran Lantink

Duran Lantink invited guests down to an office space – soon to be fashion-favourite design studio Bureau Betak’s new HQ – lined with cubicles to see his A/W 2025 runway unfold. One might have expected a collection of grey office-core formality to have appeared, but that would have been too on the nose for Lantink. Instead came a series of brash, sculptural creations that played with animal prints and ideas of ‘bad taste’. Moving away from the padded bubble forms that have defined previous seasons, more tapered silhouettes used the body as a framework for dramatic character-building; jackets in zebra-print pony hair rose up to the earlobes, velvet leopard print hugged heads in balaclavas and legs in flared trousers, and snakeskin fabric became alien-like neck-swallowing bodysuits. Taking his signature three-dimensional sculpting to wry new territories, the LVMH Prize-shortlisted designer self-titled the collection ‘Duramnimal.’

Mixed in with these jungle prints, a storyline of absurdist Americana ran through battered varsity jackets, camo prints, padded trapper caps and oversized denim that was constructed to have the illusion of floating in front of models' hips. Having his fun with small town Southern aesthetics, one pair of jeans even took the style of assless chaps. But it was the opening and closing looks that were the most talked about – Mica Argañaraz in an Action Man-style latex six-pack torso, and a male model with waxy, swinging boobs. ‘I love the idea of women as action figures,’ the designer said in explanation. ‘I think everyone should feel empowered to create their own identity and not feel restricted by anything.’ OB

McQueen

During his tenure at McQueen thus far, Irish designer Seán McGirr has largely found inspiration on the streets of London – his adopted home city where he arrived to study at Central Saint Martins in the early 2010s. This season, in a more intimate presentation, his third collection for the British house, he said post-show that he was thinking about ‘Victorian London… particularly Charles Dickens’ Night Walks, conjuring a nocturnal dandy ‘who walks on the streets until dawn’. Historical inflections came in raised ruffled collars, capes and carved waistlines, while extreme elongated footwear – recalling the shape of a winklepicker – lent a strangeness to the silhouette. In a continuation of the crystallised finale looks of last season, the collection was heavy on embellishment, from bejewelled facemarks to scores of surface adornment on leather jackets and dresses, or the gilded embroidery on the frock coat which closed the show.

Another reference was Oscar Wilde, a writer McGirr said he grew up with as a teenager and who is synonymous with the figure of the dandy. ‘To me, dandyism is the ultimate act of adornment; deeply personal, playful and transgressive. It raises questions of character and identity, idealism and gender,’ said McGirr. ‘I wanted to explore the enduring relevance of the dandy’s radical spirit in our modern world.’ In this translation of past to present, McGirr also spent more time in the McQueen archive this season, paying particular attention to Lee McQueen’s hourglass-shaped tailoring. ‘McQueen is all about the waist… I wanted to rework [that] in a way that made sense for today.’ JM

Comme des Garçons

Rei Kawakubo’s latest runway show was a declaration of independence. ‘Recently we feel that big business, big culture, global systems, world structures maybe are not so great after all,’ she issued in a brief statement on her A/W 2025 show, presented in Paris on Saturday afternoon. ‘There is also strong value in small. Small can be mighty.’ She is proof: now over half a century since she founded the convention-defying label in Tokyo, Japan in 1973, Comme des Garçons provides alternative to the luxury fashion conglomerate, shepherding a small umbrella of designers (among them Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya) and incubating several more (the designers behind Vaquera, one of those labels, were in attendance at the show). As such, the collection’s opening felt like a send up of the corporate uniform: tailoring fabrics, from Prince of Wales check to pinstripes, were reimagined into Kawakubo’s strange, undulating forms. That off her chest, the rest of the collection looked towards tropes of femininity, from ruffles, pleats and floral motifs (the latter as a 3D adornment on the inside of a tartan dress, which the model held open as she walked) to textures of velvet and satin. As ever, it was a free association of ideas from a designer who, at 82 years old, remains one of fashion’s most liberated – and independent – voices. JM

Hermès

Upon entering the low-lit Hermès space, the feeling underfoot was like stepping onto a particularly plush material – though, as your eyes adjusted, the spiralling runway was actually covered in a soft layer of soil. It set the stage for a ‘determined’ collection from Nadège Vanhée, who in lieu of thematics described the collection’s mood as ‘sculptural, resilient, seductive… [the woman] moves forward, never looks back. She has everything she needs.’ So out stomped her largely leather-clad cast in riding boots and high-heeled brogues, the latter’s perforations also appearing as leather piping on sculpted dresses and mini shorts. Leather was a focus throughout – an expression of the house’s extraordinary command of the material – from enveloping reversible overcoats to a stripped-back riff on the biker jacket and pin-sharp tailoring, or the sensual line of a ribbed wool and leather dress. In its movement between the everyday – albeit reimagined in hyper-luxurious style – and a pulsing undercurrent of sensuality, it was the latest chapter in Vanhée’s ongoing interrogation of womanhood at the house. Now in her tenth year, it is a vision that looks more desirable than ever. JM

Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood

Andreas Kronthaler was feeling sentimental this season. ‘This collection is about honouring the place I have lived for more than 30 years: London,’ he said ahead of his A/W 2025 show, which – if not a touch ironically – was held in Paris yesterday afternoon. His ode to the city began with the anchors of every Westwood collection – knitwear and tailoring – which the designer subverted through a series of witty, swashbuckling silhouettes that channelled the distinctive creative language he shared with his late partner, Vivienne Westwood, for three decades.

Heritage fabrics were pushed to new realms of invention, so that Harris tweeds came in a carnival of shades and stripes, deep blue Yorkshire wools were transformed into fuzzy bodysuits, and bolshy Scottish tartans appeared in Clueless-esque wonky suiting. Ties, meanwhile, were so exaggeratedly long they skimmed the knees. Elsewhere, a love letter to Westwood’s style of drape, cut and corsetry ran through the designer’s more feminine looks, where cowl necks and boning exposed bare chests, and silhouettes roved between Victorian to Grecian and bohemian.

Drawing inspiration from a lengthy list of figures the brand admires – among them Quentin Crisp, Gertrude Stein and Rihanna – the result was a collection that unified a hodge-podge of characters and sensibilities. Not unlike the subcultural melting pot of London itself, Kronthaler’s school of A/W 2025 was a place where an office-punk, windswept chiffon goddess, padded 1980s ski instructor, and a bodiced gothic bride (who closed out the show) could happily coexist. ‘Vivienne taught me the love of tailoring and knitting,’ said Kronthaler. ‘The formality it gives you is a framework to express yourself. There’s nothing sexier than a suit.’ OB

Noir Kei Ninomiya

Until 2019, Noir Kei Ninomiya showed his raven black collections in stark white rooms – just natural light, no music – with the idea that others could see the clothes ‘deeply and simply’. Things have changed quite substantially since then. Yesterday morning, guests of the Comme des Garçons designer’s A/W 2025 show were welcomed into a darkened space that was lit solely by the glow of UV, illuminating the outfits of the oft-too serious front row like dancers in a neon rave.

The collection that followed was, as ever with Kei Ninomiya, an expression of unrestrained invention. Soundtracked to glitchy electronica, the opening looks had the colour and cheer of a kindergarten crafts room; bulbous plastic shapes resembled squishable toys in gashapon vending machines, an assemblage dress of massive bows had the texture of multi-coloured pipe cleaners, and dozens of yarn pom poms were adjoined into a modish ultra-mini dress topped with a mushroom stool matching hat. Designing from impulse rather than reference, the designer summed up the collection in a typically mysterious fashion – ‘a kind of feeling that is uncertain and hard to understand.’

While the Japanese designer has, in recent years, introduced a more vivid palette, his most enduring fascination remains in the language of black – as reflected in the closing looks of his A/W 2025 collection. Showcasing his gift for adorning the body in unconventional materials ‘to achieve expressions impossible with just fabric‘, this time resin was the star of these monochromatic creations. Taking on alien proportions, balls of shimmering fronds exploded from the body, while inky tailoring saw spines of spiky white plastic that glowed under the UV sprout and spiral from jackets. It made for a spectacle of sensory overload that only Kei Ninomiya could have produced. ‘Black is just the word, but it really has a meaning, very strong and very beautiful, and very deep,’ he once said of the beloved shade. ‘It has such a feeling.’ OB

Junya Watanabe

After a rugged Junya Watanabe MAN show earlier this year – which largely riffed on tropes of classic American sportswear – the Japanese designer was back to a more experimental mood for his latest womenswear outing, shown in a stripped out former shop on Paris’ Rue Auber. ‘I'm fascinated by creating clothing that appears to be unrealistic. This time, I created everyday clothing from a cubist perspective,’ he elucidated, explaining the collection’s protruding spikes or sharp, geometric surfaces, which transformed pieces like the leather biker jacket or trench coats into surreal – but undeniably Watanabe-esque – forms. Others had enormous pitched shoulders, or became strange hybrids, like a pair of lace-up leather boots which became the sleeve of a jacket. Another inspiration was the musician Jimi Hendrix, which lent the collection a rock and roll inflection, from amped-up fuzzy jackets and shades to python-print pants and garments crafted from hair and wigs. JM

Victoria Beckham

This season, Victoria Beckham found inspiration close to home – within the four walls of her own dressing room, to be precise. Unveiled in a stark runway space in Paris yesterday evening to a sultry soundtrack that moved between jazz and trip hop, her A/W 2025 show was about the ‘tricks’ and ‘happy accidents’ that shape the way we put on clothes every day. Doubling down on the flattering cuts that are the backbone of her brand, the resulting collection roved freely between dress codes, as if pulled instinctively from every rail of the wardrobe. Raincoats and parkas were exaggerated or cropped, exposing body-hugging garments that took cues from the knicker drawer. Elsewhere, Beckham played with the ways women might borrow their boyfriend’s clothes and adapt them, so that masculine shirting was rolled up at the sleeve and oversized trousers were cinched at the midriff. Winking at the make-up tutorials she films at home, silk dressing gowns were reconstructed into lustrous evening dresses, while the designer’s initial-emblazoned bathrobe was slashed into pussy-bowed smoking jackets in terry-cloth towelling. It was a love letter to spur-of-the-moment dressing that was firmly rooted in Beckham’s own personal language of chic – clothes that she and the brand’s customer have worn, and will wear, time and again. OB

Issey Miyake

Since the late 1980s, Austrian artist Erwin Wurm has invited members of the public to hold specific objects – from plastic buckets and chairs to stacks of oranges – for a minute or so (Wurm discourages specificity on timings). A practice the artist has returned to over the decades, Wurm’s ‘One Minute Sculptures’ see the ‘participating viewer become part of the sculpture for an ephemeral time,’ as a blurb on the artist’s website describes. On Friday afternoon in Paris, Wurm staged his latest edition of ‘One Minute Sculptures’ as the backdrop to Issey Miyake’s A/W 2025 runway show. Held at the Carrousel du Louvre, a group of performers were invited to interact with Issey Miyake garments, stretching them into strange, body-like forms for the duration of the show – an apt reflection of the playful spirit of the Japanese label, which has long been fascinated by fabric and form.

The collection itself was titled ‘[N]either [N]or’, seeing head designer Satoshi Kondo look towards the ‘ambiguity and many in-betweens’ of Wurm’s project for a collection that was rooted in the ‘freedom of wearing [clothing] in one’s own way and the exciting possibilities that are yet to be discovered within the garments’. As a result, there was a spirit of play in Kondo’s clothes – trompe l’oeil prints of Issey Miyake knitwear ran along undulating plissé gowns, blown-up paper bags became colourful strappy tops, and clever new heat-pressed knits made structured, paper doll-like silhouettes. A liberated use of colour, evocative of Wurm’s photographs, ran throughout.

It was a collection that continued Kondo’s recent winning streak. His garments have the illusion of spontaneity, though they are actually the result of several months – even years – of fabric experimentation and craft. ‘Issey Miyake was tenacious and stubborn. It’s something that echoes with me, too – that tenacity, that perseverance,’ Kondo told Wallpaper* in the recent March 2025 Style Issue. ‘He continued until he found something really original. It’s a mindset. When you want a really beautiful flower, you don’t go to the florist, you go out into the forest.’  JM

Givenchy

Sarah Burton’s first collection for Givenchy began with the discovery of a cache of pattern pieces, stuffed in brown envelopes and hidden behind a wall at the former Givenchy maison at 8 Avenue de Vigny, found during a recent renovation. Created by Hubert de Givenchy, they date back to 1952, the year he founded the eponymous house. For the former Alexander McQueen designer – who is known for a meticulous hand when it comes to cut and make – they sparked the exploration of contemporary womanhood which unfolded at the Givenchy salon on Avenue Georges V on Friday morning. ‘It’s my natural instinct to go back to pattern-cutting, to craftsmanship,’ she explained, noting that each garment was fitted at least three times on the body before walking the runway. ‘To cut, shape and proportion. It’s what I feel, how I work, and want to do.’

It led to a collection that eschewed theatrics for clarity and purpose, though not without flourishes of glamour and romance. ‘I want to address everything about modern women,’ she said. ‘Strength, vulnerability, emotional intelligence, feeling powerful or very sexy. All of it.’ So there was precise tailoring, carved narrow at the waist and wide at the shoulder (edges were left raw as if to suggest an act of construction), trapeze-shaped overcoats, and roomy leather shirts and jackets, while eveningwear moved from intricately embroidered opera coats tied with enormous obi-style bows towards bouncing layers of lemon yellow tulle, flared ballet skirts and tuxedo-inspired tailoring, sliced at the waist or turned back to front. Meanwhile, in splashes of the surreal, tops and dresses were constructed from make-up powder cases and tangles of jewellery.

It was a strong start which, despite its sheen of modernity, was nonetheless rooted in Hubert de Givenchy’s archival designs. In the sunlit salon – which is also the historic site of the house’s couture atelier – the intimate guest list perched on symbolic piles of pattern pieces, like those discovered hidden on Avenue de Vigny. ‘To go forward, you have to go back to the beginning,’ Burton said. ‘To me, that’s about the atelier. It’s the heart and soul of Givenchy.’ JM

Chloé

Chemena Kamali continued to hone her breezy, bohemian vision for Chloé – one that recalls Karl Lagerfeld’s free-spirited early collections for the French house – though this season, the German designer talked about seeking ‘evolution… to redefine and to evolve the Chloé woman’s state of mind’. There was certainly a more opulent feel to the collection, which borrowed from bourgeois dress codes – namely a proliferation of ‘fur’ (like most designers this season, it was actually shearling with the illusion of fur), whether as nipped, patchworked jackets, trims or stoles, while heritage overcoats, ladylike chain handbags and Mary Jane footwear struck a similar mood.

They were welcome additions to the Chloé uniform, which this season felt more grounded in everyday wear – Kamali talked about a finding mood of ‘realness and instinctive ease’ in flared jeans and leather trousers, as well as the eclectic, thrown-on styling. That said, there was still fun to be had in the romantic gowns in the millefeuille ruffles of taffeta and lace which have become the designer’s signature. ‘I thought about how we romanticise the past through an intuitive lens, blending traces of tradition and historical fragments, pieces passed down through generations, what we once loved with what we love today,’ she described. JM

Rabanne

It is astounding how fur – albeit in faux or shearling iterations – has dominated this season’s runways, emerging time and again across the four major cities. No doubt it speaks to our desire for protection against the elements, both real and existential – an idea that will surely be unpacked by commentators in the coming weeks. It was at Rabanne Julien Dossena conjured some of the most arresting ‘furs’ of the month so far, spanning knit gowns with tassel-like ‘tails’ around the hem, sliced shearling skirts and tabard tops, and bombastic fur coats lined with shimmering, tinsel-like fabric – at once glamorous and primitive. Dossena called the juxtaposition one of preciousness and protection: opposing impulses which also met in clear plastic raincoats worn over gleaming chainmail dresses, or the hardy, outdoorsy wools and leathers clashed with delicate beadwork or sequins. These tonal shifts were intriguing and beautiful, confirming Dossena’s status as one of Paris’s most consistently impressive designers. With another stellar collection under his belt – and having served over a decade at Rabanne – the question lingers: will Dossena be one of fashion’s next big moves? JM

Rick Owens

Held in one of the vast interior wings of Paris’s Palais de Tokyo – a longtime show location for the designer – Rick Owens called his latest womenswear collection ‘Concordians’, the same title as his menswear show held earlier this year. It references the industrial Italian town of Concordia, just outside Venice, where Owens produces the bulk of his collections each season.

Having travelled there for over two decades (in various dwellings, from a couch in his office to a ‘serial killer hotel’ and now his own apartment), the town’s relative banality has become a part of his and his team’s creative rhythm: ‘a studious isolation… almost bleakness. This cloistered life seems to be what it takes to be able to focus on reaching for something weird and wonderful.’

The spoils of that isolation were on show here in a collection which channelled a subversive, Owensian glamour: whether the ‘chain-linked’ laser-cut leather dresses which appeared on the body like scales or feathers (a collaboration with Parisian designer Victor Clavelly), towering, broad-shouldered overcoats in wool or leather, or, in another continuation of the menswear show earlier this year, ‘megacrust’ denim, whereby the fabric is intricately layered with bronze foil and wax. ‘I want to depend on fewer things but make them as supernatural as possible,’ he said after the menswear show, and here he seemed to retain that focus – this was a collection which was undeniably Rick Owens, though here evolved through extraordinary craft and make.

Iggy Pop’s ‘Mass Production’, which soundtracked his very first show 23 years ago, made a nostalgic return – another suggestion that Owens was digging deeper into his label’s rebellious roots. ‘We won’t legally be able to use it on YouTube,’ the designer said, ‘but it’s a song that yearns for the weird and wonderful, as much to me now as it did back then.’ JM

Schiaparelli

What would the world be like if we woke up tomorrow and there were no men? How would women dress? These musings are usually the stuff of playful debate over the dinner table, though yesterday in Paris, Daniel Roseberry brought them to life with a high-glamour A/W 2025 collection for Schiaparelli. Observing ‘that the women I know rarely, if ever, dress for men… when they do dress up, it’s for other women, and it’s women’s praise that matters to them,’ the American designer imagined how women would remember masculine archetypes in an alternate reality where they ‘inherited the earth’.

The resulting collection, which Roseberry titled Lone Star, pulled from his fantastical couture offering in January, as well as old Hollywood tailoring and gunslinging Western tropes that paid tribute to his upbringing in Texas. Balancing ideas of dominance and tenderness, his women appeared in decadent velvets, voluminous furs and sheeny satins in silhouettes that played with juxtapositions: feline second-skin dresses, demure oversized 1940s suiting and spangled cinched-waist drama fit for the red carpet. Southern charm came in waves of bow-legged denim, leather fringing, cowboy boots and low-slung belts that were accentuated through the house’s gilded codes. It was, he says, a tribute to the strong women in his life.

‘In this post-social media era – when many of us have become weary of and disgusted by living our lives through the screen – many of us are asking what makes life meaningful,’ Roseberry said in a letter to attendees. ‘I’ve spent the past few months speaking less and listening more. I wanted to make things that can inspire. The women in my life are lone stars – there’s no one else like them, and there could never be. I hope they, and all women, feel the same about these clothes.’ OB

Tom Ford

Haider Ackermann made a confident start to his tenure at Tom Ford, which he described as an attempt to capture the mood of seduction which he sees as foundational to the label. ‘I hope I seduced you all,’ the designer said backstage after the show, which instilled the uninhibited glamour synonymous with the label – founded in 2005, just after the eponymous designer’s departure from Gucci – with something more louche and darkly romantic, a hallmark of Ackermann’s own work at both his now-shuttered label and Berluti, where he was briefly creative director. Comprising both men’s and womenswear, the collection deftly shifted between daywear – largely in leather and largely black – towards showstopping eveningwear in the bold, painterly hues with which Ackermann has become synonymous. A sinuous yellow gown was hiked up above the hip on one side, another came in striking green satin sliced seductively along its back (a particularly Haider-esque gesture), while a lilac dress was adorned with shimmering tassels. For men, tailoring was pin-sharp, with smatterings of sparkle a nod to the more overt glamour elsewhere. It ended with a standing ovation – the intimate show was packed with Ackermann’s friends and well-wishers – while Tom Ford himself gave a seal of approval with a warm embrace at the show’s close. JM

Acne Studios

Acne Studios latest collection played out amid a surreal skyline conceived by the set designer Polly Philp, whereby totemic metal ‘skyscrapers’ were interspersed with tapestry-covered ‘rocks’ by design duo Front, inspired by the natural landscapes of Sweden. This clash, between nature and the city, provided the impetus of Jonny Johansson’s latest collection, which saw the designer imagine his protagonist wandering from the windswept Nordic north and into an urban cityscape for ‘a dynamic juxtaposition of two worlds; an exercise in contrasts.’ As such, garments which suggested an overt glamour – like a power-shouldered body suit – were imagined in soft, teddy-bear like fabrics. Indeed the bear, inspired by a rewatch of Björk’s Human Behaviour video (the musician had ‘curated’ a newly mixed version for the soundtrack), became a trope, with the construction of a teddy bear’s limbs inspiring the blown-up proportions of tailoring and outerwear, as well as an enormous paw-like boot.

Alongside were pieces which conjured the surreal femininity Johansson has been honing in recent seasons – a dress covered in trailing ribbons and bows, crinkled leather pussybow shirts, hazy trompe l’oeil prints – while a sense of the homespun recalled the designer’s own roots in northern Sweden. ‘A Nordic upbringing develops a deep connection to nature. Nature and urban cities have always had a relation that fascinates me,’ he said. ‘It is the tension and contrast between the two of them that I have tried to portray within this collection.’ JM

READ: Acne Studios has created a surreal skyline for its A/W 2025 runway show

Stella McCartney

Stella McCartney was in a playful mood this season, holding her runway show in the surreal ‘Stellacorp’ headquarters, a simulacrum of a corporate office complete with spinning chairs and computer desks. Even more surreal were the handful of male and female pole dancers who emerged at the show’s finale, a nod to the collection’s title, which was ‘Laptop to Lapdance’. ‘A bold day-to-night wardrobe for the working woman,’ described McCartney of the collection’s roots, which saw her imagine the season’s protagonist heading from a day in the office to a night out on the town in typically irreverent fashion. Part Working Girl – power shoulders were a definite feature – the collection swayed between double-breasted tailoring, pencil skirts and office blouses (worn with a hefty dose of irony), and party wear, from tasseled jeans to T-shirts which read ‘Slippery When Wet’. And, while it made for a moment of much-needed escapism, McCartney remained fastidious about sustainability, with 96 per cent of the collection crafted from conscious materials (and, as ever, 100 per cent cruelty free). This included some impressive versions of python and ostrich skin, here crafted from the innovative Yatay M, an alternative leather made from mycelium. JM

Dries Van Noten

In the first of two debuts of the day – Haider Ackermann would present his first Tom Ford collection later that evening – Belgian designer Julian Klausner heralded the start of a new era at Dries Van Noten, taking over from the eponymous founder who made his exit last June. Having worked at he house since 2018, and arriving with the full blessing of Van Noten himself, the show at the Opéra Garnier was less about a full-scale revolution than it was about a steady transition from one designer to the next.

The show’s setting was a clue to the inspiration: Klausner imagined his protagonist for the season dashing through the gilded opera house grabbing pieces of fabric and wrapping them around her body intuitively, tied with shoelaces. As such, there was a sense of improvisation to the silhouette: a halterneck top appeared crafted from a handful of silk scarves, while dresses wrapped cleverly around the body, as if thrown on in haste. Opulent fabrications – sometimes clashing – nodded towards Van Noten’s own mastery of texture and print, though here there was bolder eclectism, like a series of garments adorned with hundreds of different curtain ties, or the amalgam of paillettes, animal prints, checks or brocade.

‘Looking back, I realised I made this collection in a very instinctive way,’ he said after the show. ‘I went towards things I always loved. I thought about the fact that the first time I fell in love with fashion was as a child playing in the costume box, just grabbing things that you love, combining them, mixing them. Dries wanted me to feel the freedom of doing it alone.’ JM

Courrèges

Nicolas Di Felice said he wanted to mine a feeling of optimism this season at Courrèges, despite what he admits are increasingly ‘uncertain times’. Set to a remix of Chantal’s 1990 house classic ‘The Realm’ and centred around a flurry of pink confetti cleverly conceived by French set designer Rémy Briere, Di Felice called the runway ‘a place to unite, to gather – a safe space for joy and togetherness’ akin to his beloved raves (the Belgian designer grew up in the 1990s rave scene, a constant touch point of his work).

It lent the collection a looser, more intuitive feel: a series of dresses, which wrapped cleverly around the body, were based on the idea of throwing on a scarf (the silhouette ran throughout, and was also inspired by the elongated rectangle shape of a streamer), while enormous ostrich feathers became tops (the musician Arca was already wearing one front row). Meanwhile archetypal garments – like the tank top, or the biker jacket – were twisted at their seams into intriguing new proportions, often with the illusion that they were slipping off the body.

‘This collection started from the first time I was pessimistic in my life, which was not like me at all, last season,’ Di Felice explained backstage, noting that photographs of confetti by the artist Dan Colen had brought him back to life. ‘So this [collection] is the total opposite. I found myself so happy, full of joy, an optimist again.’ JM

Alaïa

Marking a return to Paris after showing at New York’s Guggenheim Museum last season, Pieter Mulier staged his latest collection in the Alaïa atelier on Rue Servan. Populating the space were a series of monolithic heads in roughly hewn unfired clay by the contemporary Dutch artist Mark Manders. Mulier said he was drawn to the works for the way they appear to stand outside of time or place: ‘Manders’ work fascinates me – each of his sculptures seem itself a work either in progress, or marked by the passage of an imaginary time, reminiscent at once of many different cultures,’ he said. ‘And that idea of a non-linearity – of space, and of time – was inspiring.’

The idea of non-linearity – of garments which traversed time and space, a ‘beauty outside of any era or geography, free of boundaries’ – ran through the standout collection. Referencing at once ancient deities (on his Instagram prior to the show, he posted a carved Bronze Age figure of a woman, captioned ‘Modern Venus’) and the archival designs of house founder Azzedine Alaïa (notably, a focus on hooded silhouette and pleats), the resulting garments were what Mulier called ‘kinetic sculptures’. Romantic flourishes came in heart-shaped cut-outs and flower-like pom poms at the neckline, while looping gowns – held in place with twists of metal – continued the ‘gravity-defying’ silhouettes of last season.

‘The message is about singularity, individuality, the eternal strength and resilience of women, empowering them through their clothes,’ Mulier continued. ‘That always inspired Azzedine, and it always inspires me – the strength of beauty.’ JM

Dior

The idea of metamorphosis was at the centre of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s latest collection for Dior, an idea reflected in a theatrical mise-en-scène by the experimental American theatre director Robert Wilson which recreated the dawn of time in his symbolic style (from jagged glaciers that rose from the floor to a pterodactyl which zoomed across the space). Grazia Chiuri’s collection had also begun with something elemental, at least in fashion terms: the white shirt, which she linked with Gianfranco Ferré, who led the house in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and who was an influence here.

The foundational garment became a jumping off point for an exploration of historic dress codes, layered under corsetry or dramatically ruffled and elongated at the cuff, chiming with the Elizabethan-inflected frock coats, ruff-inspired pearl necklaces and flared-waist crinoline gowns elsewhere (Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and its time-travelling, gender-shifting protagonist, were another inspiration). Meanwhile, tough black leather met playful faux-ermine stoles, while slouchy parka-style outerwear prevented the collection from feeling like costume. Grazia Chiuri also reintroduced the John Galliano-era J’Adore Dior T-shirt, including a version given new life with patches of delicate lace. ‘A femininity that imagines possible futures by mixing evocations of a past,’ the designer described. JM

Stay tuned for more from Paris Fashion Week A/W 2025.

When Valentine’s Day rolls around, it can be tough to think outside the box if you don’t want to adhere to the prescribed mandate of flowers and chocolate, hurriedly purchased from a supermarket chain.

Fortunately, Wallpaper* is an expert on thoughtful, design-led gifting for the aesthete in your life, whether that be a partner, friend, or even yourself. And, if whoever you’re planning to treat this Friday 14 February is a beauty-obsessive, then look no further than our selection of products in the most amorous of shades: red.

Below, find five suggestions to fulfil or inspire your last-minute Valentine’s Day shopping needs, from lipstick and blush to perfume and nail polish, all in bold, passionate and powerful hues of ruby, burgundy, berry and more.

Valentine’s Day: red beauty products to gift the aesthete in your life

A limited edition lipstick by Chanel

A ruby-like bottle of Comme des Garçons perfume

A flushed cream blush by Westman Atelier

An (almost) burgundy nail polish by Hermès

A fiery glass flagon by Kindred Black

Today (11 February 2025) Dover Street Market Paris has re-issued a rare piece of Comme des Garçons perfume history: the heart-shaped packaging created for Comme des Garçons 2 in 2005, to mark Valentine’s Day.

Crafted from a silver brillo-pad, it was first designed as a limited edition accoutrement for Comme des Garçons 2, a follow-up to the brand’s olfactory debut Comme des Garçons, which launched in 1999 and 1994 respectively by Rei Kawukubo. Both were composed by nose Mark Buxton, with Comme des Garçons 2, a floral chypre, drawing inspiration from Japanese calligraphy via aldehydic florals and heart notes of ink.

Dover Street Market Paris: Love Hurts

Comme des Garçons recently celebrated three decades of perfume-making, which – as creative director of CDG Parfums Christian Astuguevieille told Dal Chodha for the March 2025 issue of Wallpaper* – is always ‘defined without the notion of beauty’.

Alongside Comme des Garçons 2 and its inky scent profile, the Japanese brand’s roster of 102 fragrances counts Antoine Lie’s Comme des Garcons 2011 (which produces the olfactory illusion of industrial glue and brown scotch tape) and Odeur 10, a recent perfume that recalls the antiseptic aroma of hydrogen peroxide.

There are only 120 units of the special edition Love Hurts packaging, which will fit any one of Mark Atlan’s pebble-like Comme des Garçons’ perfume bottles for the likes of Amazingreen, Blackpepper, Wonderwood, CDG 2 and CDG 2 Man.

They are joined by an edit of bespoke pieces by designers close to Dover Street Market exploring ‘love and all its iterations’. This includes the JW Anderson pigeon bag, dressed up in a custom BDSM harness; a sculptural bodysuit from Duran Lantick (one of Wallpaper’s Design Awards 2025 winners); and a series of caps by Aaron Esh, embroidered with texts from John Donne, PJ Harvey and a ‘Reddit user’.

In addition, Ronnie Cooke Newhouse and Karl Bolander, who have collaborated with Comme des Garçons’ Parfums since its inception, have provided new Love Hurts campaign imagery.

Newhouse’s archival ads can also be found in Dino Simmonet’s book Comme des Garçons’ Parfums 1994 - 2025, available at shop.doverstreetmarket.com.

Dover Street Market Paris, 35-37 Rue Des Francs Bourgeois 75004, doverstreetmarketparis.com.

A holey sweater artfully made using sabotaged knitting machines. Protective bulges layered on to a woman’s body. The soft scents of cardamom, musk and rose emerging from a concrete container in a fine mist. Perfumes introduced as ‘odeurs’ that are not Pour Homme or Pour Femme. A big sexy global department store named after a Mayfair street. Boutiques that pop up and vanish. Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons is part dazzling exactitude, part sucker punch. One immense, perplexing, juicy work of art.

In 1994, designer Rei Kawakubo’s inventive modus operandi didn’t suggest a move into the more industrial realm of fragrance. Since 1973, she had pushed at the lines of the body, tearing up notions of taste, comfort and status with her clothes. How would these values be translated into a less tangible medium? ‘By telling a story around what was unique and unconventional, by transgressing industry norms about advertising and packaging,’ says Comme des Garçons president Adrian Joffe in the foreword to a new book by Dino Simonett, celebrating 30 years of Comme des Garçons Parfums.

Comme des Garçons perfume: 30 years of disruptive fragrance

The brand’s first fragrance, Eau de Parfum, was launched around the pool at the Ritz Paris, the room decorated with sacks of yellow liquid. Its raison d’être, penned by Kawakubo, was presented in bold Helvetica type across two double pages: ‘A perfume that works like a medicine and behaves like a drug. To excite the feelings, to stir the emotions, to raise the spirit and to make one feel positive. The pleasure of a perfume for oneself.’ With those words, Kawakubo crashed through the fragrance industry’s sedate notions of gender, design and function. She offered a new sense of taste.

She is interested in smells, rather than the business of perfume, a distinction pressed by Comme des Garçons Parfums’ creative director Christian Astuguevieille, who says he doesn’t like things that are ‘too beautiful’ or ‘excessive’ in their beauty. ‘Very beautiful things are, to us, suspicious, boring and unsettling. The concept of Comme des Garçons Parfums is defined without the notion of beauty.’

Astuguevieille – an artist, sculptor, furniture designer, maker of jewellery and objects – is also most certainly not a ‘nose’ yet has overseen the development of some 94 fragrances ranging from the polluted grassiness of London’s Serpentine Gallery location to the classic English rose for Grace Coddington.

When he first met Kawakubo in 1991, they did not talk about perfume. She invited him to create rope sculptures painted black to sit in harmony with her latest collection. ‘And I created an imaginary forest,’ he says. Around the same time, he had been making objects inspired by wabi-sabi and furoshiki in his Paris studio. He is an interlocutor of odour, working between a number of perfumers and Kawakubo herself to translate concepts to elicit the most abstract scents. How would a perfume be if it were offcentre is a question never far from his mind.

As a collaborator on the debut fragrance – acting as co-author and poetic emissary – Astuguevieille described the structure of the original eau de parfum as ‘a journey along which windows open and close in succession’. A precursor to the beauty-product-as-home-sculpture we see so much of today, the bottle was designed to lie horizontally like a stone at the bottom of a stream. Kawakubo created the now-recognisable pebble bottle and the vacuum-packed interior while Franco-American designer Marc Atlan conceptualised the graphic vocabulary for the box and the bottle – all of which still confidently sit out of the mainstream. It embodies Kawakubo’s practice in the most direct way; it is a bottle that cannot stand up yet fits comfortably in the palm of the hand.

At Dover Street Market in London, a tree-like iron structure on the ground floor accommodates the brand’s fragrances. The bottles seem small, humble, regardless of their size. Even when they are 200ml, they are wide not tall; the eye is kept low, you peer at them from above and hover. The pebbles lie face down, seemingly discarded, unassuming and unpretentious – the opposite of the shiny, erect, metallic bottles that are commonplace elsewhere.

All of the vessels for Comme des Garçons Parfums are provocations, ranging from thick glass rectangles, wider than they are tall, to round cylinders and ones that appear to have flat bases but will not stand up. Their boxes appear as utilitarian as Apple products and are free from the embossed logos, thin cellophane, and polyester ribbon that still dominate the wider fragrance industry.

To date, the Comme des Garçons fragrance portfolio includes scents made with a musician, a milliner, a gallery, a muse, an artist, a magazine and a furniture design company. For the last three decades, the notion of ‘guerrilla’ has been key to the output of both Kawakubo and Astuguevieille. ‘Our olfactory research has evolved over time, but the principle has remained our loyalty to audacity and freedom,’ says Astuguevieille. That concept is the freedom to use materials like tar, the smell of clothes drying in the wind or of a garage, while knowing how to use classic substances like vetiver and patchouli. ‘We prefer not to be stuck in a category, but to be free and different.

Comme des Garçons Parfums 1994-2025, a new book by Dino Simonett celebrating three decades of Comme des Garçons disruptive fragrances, is available now at shop.doverstreetmarket.com.

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A version of this article appears in the March 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on international newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Dover Street Market is celebrating two decades of ‘beautiful chaos’. Opening its doors in London's Mayfair in 2004, the radical concept store was founded by Comme des Garçon’s Rei Kawakubo and her husband Adrian Joffe with a simple mission: to offer a shopping experience without definitions. Departments were intentionally mixed up, windows changed constantly, and visual arts institutions and creatives were invited to bring their subversive ideas into the space. Moving to the cavernous site in Haymarket below Piccadilly in 2016 – potentially an act of retail suicide that luckily paid off – while expanding to outposts in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles and Paris, Dover Street Market has, over the years, come to represent so much more than a store. It's the beating heart of Comme des Garçons, a touchpoint for a global community of creatives, and an incubator for emerging design talent. Never sticking to convention and always evolving, it is above all a place where people can connect with one another and feel inspired.

Incredible displays have been a part of life at Dover Street Market since the beginning. In a practice linked to its Tachiagari turnover – where the store closes for a few days each season to be reimagined anew – everyone from Ai Weiwei to Karl Lagerfeld has been given free rein over the space. In efforts that have often kept staff working through the night, these interventions have seen Stephen Jones festoon hundreds of hats from the ceiling; artist Matt Clark sail a captainless boat through the window; and a huge wooden structure with positive aphorisms penned by Kawakubo, made in celebration of DSM’s tenth anniversary, which very nearly got vice president Dickon Bowden arrested by Westminster City Council. ‘Storytelling is not just one thing,’ says Joffe, when asked why these installations are a vital part of DSM’s world. ‘Experiences are better when deeper and wider.’

Marking 20 years of radical retail, the store has planned a carnival of displays and special releases with Undercover, Cav Empt, and more, set to be unleashed in Haymarket this week. As celebrations get underway, here Wallpaper* looks back at the most memorable installations in Dover Street Market’s history.

Two decades of Dover Street Market installations

Heaven by Marc Jacobs, 2022

In 2020, Marc Jacobs channelled his inner teenage angst into the launch of the diffusion line, Heaven. Drawing upon subcultures like grunge and rave, the youthful offshoot of his namesake label was a stratospheric success from the word go, and has since caused frenzy with rebellious collaborations alongside Kiko Kostadinov, Dilara Findikoglu, and Isabella Burley’s Climax Books. In 2022, the brand found a spiritual home in the basement of Dover Street Market, the area of the store that houses fledgling brands and where DSM’s youngest customers can access a piece of its world at more affordable price points. Brought to life by John Scharbach, the installation resembled a suburban teenage bedroom on acid, complete with a wall made from hundreds of teddy bears, a plush colourful carpet and logo neon light. No parents allowed!

Simone Rocha, 2021

After several lockdowns and a year of working, for the most part, at a distance from others, the start of 2021 marked a year of strange seclusion around the world. Livestreamed from an empty Gothic Revival church in central London, Simone Rocha’s ‘Winter Roses’ A/W 2021 collection was a product of these disjointed months, fusing the formality of school pinafores with airy, dreamlike dresses and looks of a darker mood. As ever with the Irish designer, it was about being tough and tender at the same time. In celebration of ten years of her brand, and after having to show the collection digitally, the designer decided to bring the church to Dover Street Market, where a sturdy house-like structure was erected on the ground floor. Its walls were printed with the angelic figures found in the stained glass windows of St John’s Hyde Park.

Martin Parr, 2019

Few photographers have captured the quirks of British identity as prolifically, and with such accuracy, as Martin Parr. In 2019, a retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery celebrated the seminal photographer’s enduring fascination with people, bringing together some of his most recognisable works from the past five decades with never-before-seen photographs. To coincide with the landmark Only Human show, Parr designed an installation at Dover Street Market that brought the unbeautiful charm of his images into the 3D realm. Channelling the sunburnt splendour of his iconic 1980s series, The Last Resort, the photographer brought objects of English coastal nostalgia into the store, such as a plastic Mr Whippy ice cream cone, toy capsule vending machines, and a weather-beaten wooden bench.

Hello! 30th Anniversary, 2018

Over the past 20 years of Dover Street Market, frequenters of the store have learnt to expect the unexpected. The gossipy headlines of Hello! magazine might feel like a universe apart from the conceptual beauty of Comme des Garçons, but nevertheless, in 2018, DSM had its fun celebrating the British tabloid’s 30th birthday with an installation imagined by visionary set designer Andy Hillman. Emblazoned with red and white signage that read ‘Haymarket!’, a temporary newsagent stall sold items that started at the price point of 75p, including notebooks, mugs, and bottle openers.

Comme des Garçons, 2016

Rei Kawakubo’s A/W 2016 collection for Comme des Garçons was a particularly memorable display of the designer’s genius. Sending a procession of floral warriors down the runway in exaggerated silhouettes made from rose jacquards, leather bondage, and upholstered armour, it drew upon the spirit of punks and the revolutions of the 18th century. Imagined by Kawakubo herself, an austere metal structure that resembled a temple was built in the store, under which her warriors stood proudly in formation as if ready for battle.

Loewe, 2015

In 2022, Jonathan Anderson released his viral pigeon clutch – perhaps the year’s most headline-grabbing accessory – which was made even more famous by its cameo on And Just Like That in 2023. Hardcore fans of the designer will know, however, that the Irish designer’s love for bringing animals into his surreal world stretches back some years. Before the pigeon and his frog-shaped Wellipet shoes, Anderson invented the adorable – and now mainstay – Elephant crossbody bag for Loewe, which realised the curves of the gentle giant in supple calfskin leather. To mark its release, Anderson teamed up with Dover Street Market to create a life-size elephant in cheerful technicolour stripes, which towered over 10ft tall on the ground floor of Haymarket.

JW Anderson, 2016

Jonathan Anderson created his first window installation for Dover Street Market ten years ago. On the precipice of becoming one of the most important British designers of our times, that year Anderson’s men’s and women’s collections had an architectural quality to them – all strange angular cuts and dramatic silhouettes – and he described the men he imagined for S/S 2014 as ‘columns.’ With the ancient act of building on his mind, it made sense that his debut installation at DSM resembled a town, seeing sky blue walls and turrets snake together in a conceptual city for passers-by to admire in a window adjacent to DSM’s iconic white spheres.

Octopus, 2008

The gallery-like proportions of Dover Street Market have allowed space for installations of impressive scale. The team has taken advantage of this in manifold ways over the years. One particularly playful example saw a gargantuan octopus sculpture take over a corner of the shop. Created by Les Trois Garçons back in 2009, the piece was carved by hand and finished with glossy black resin and metal disks for suckers. Its tentacles wrapped around the walls, as if the mollusc was making a move to ascend the wooden spiral staircase at the heart of the store.

Tim Walker, 2008

Dover Street Market is a place where fashion’s most inventive fantasies can be experienced and touched; where you can lose yourself for a little while in a thousand different stories told by clothes. In 2008, the store celebrated an escapism of a similar kind, marking the release of Tim Walker’s now-highly collectible book, Pictures. Drawing upon the fairy tales that have shaped the legendary photographer’s ambitious tableaux images, a human-scale wooden drummer puppet sat in the window display with a dozen hand-painted drums tumbling around him, a copy of Walker’s fashion tome sat at his feet. While it may not be the biggest or brashest project the team has pulled off, the poetic display was, however, one of the store’s most beautiful – and also one of Joffe’s all-time personal favourites.

A freewheeling mood took over this season‘s menswear shows, seeing designers embrace the ‘irrational’ and the eccentric with colourful, experimental collections which in the heat of Florence, Milan and Paris captured summer’s uplifting energy. Indeed, designers from Rick Owens to Rei Kawakubo, Sabato De Sarno to Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, spoke of a shift towards hope and optimism, albeit tentative. ’I want to hope for some light, even if very small,’ said Kawakubo, while Owens called his hundreds-strong runway cast his ’white satin army of love’. Meanwhile, the looming Paris Olympics – and its message of global unity and personal tenacity – was unavoidable, seeing preparations transform the city as a backdrop to both the menswear and haute couture shows which followed.

After the shift in recent seasons towards quiet, understated luxury – and the undeniably safe collections this often yielded – it felt like a refreshing re-emergence of men’s fashion month, which thanks to blockbuster shows from the likes of Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton is shaking off any suggestion of its demise. Here, we unpack the S/S 2025 menswear shows – from ’irrational’ clothing to couture-level craft and eclectic new takes on tailoring.

Nothing was what it seemed

‘Truth and pretence, the real and the unreal.’ So began a Prada collection which saw Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons urge the viewer to look closer, ‘to question the actuality of what we perceive, to reconsider, to look at things closer’. Staged amid a ‘fairytale ravescape’ – whereby models emerged from a vertiginous white cabin, which before the show had been blaring techno music – this was a collection of illusions, from belts that were in-set into trousers to trompe l’oeil Breton striped T-shirts, or trousers which appeared to be made from tailoring wool but were actually printed cotton. Elsewhere, shirts under sweaters or cardigans were constructed as a singular garment. ‘Viewed from afar, pieces can pretend to be other,’ said the designers. ‘Details may seem simplistic, naïve, but up-close, physically, perceptions transform.’ It was disorientating fashion, for disorientating times, where even the appearance of reality is no guarantee (just prior to men’s fashion month, Meta introduced a label for Instagram and Facebook which tagged images that had been ‘made with AI’). And trompe l’oeil would appear throughout the season: at Acne Studios, denim was adorned with plastic chains, stacks of belts or printed rips and tears, while at Loewe, what looked like a cable-knit sweater was actually hand-painted fabric. ‘Things are not what they seem,’ said creative director Jonathan Anderson.

Designers embraced the ‘irrational’

Indeed, earlier in the month in Milan, the Northern Irish designer presented an equally illusory collection for his eponymous label JW Anderson. ‘Irrational clothing’, he described, noting that he was inspired by the free association of hypnotherapy (‘Inhale. Exhale. Are you feeling dreamy? Maybe a little delirious?’ read the accompanying notes). It made for a typically idiosyncratic outing – from enormous knitted house coats to Guinness-adorned knits and protrusions of coloured fabrics – which in part drew its liberated mood from viewing young people at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival. ‘The experimentation with clothing among younger generations is incredible,’ he said. ‘The eye has changed within menswear and within womenswear. People want something that is really challenging.’

This desire was echoed across the season, as menswear designers eschewed any notion of ’quiet luxury’. Martine Rose, who showed for the first time in Milan this season, adorned her stomping cast with prosthetic noses and tangled wigs, while at Rick Owens – undoubtedly a highlight of the season – the designer staged a Hollywood epic on the forecourt of Palais de Tokyo. There, his hundreds-strong ‘white satin army of love’ marched out in an arresting array of looks, from monastic hooded gowns and laddered jersey bodysuits to sculptural capes made from tarnished gold Japanese denim (‘megacrust’ is how Owens playfully described the technique). The showstopping spectacle was a celebration of fashion’s liberatory spirit, one which Owens likened to escaping his hometown of Porterville, California and running away to Hollywood. ‘[It was] the boulevard of vice I gleefully ran to to find my people, [the] weirdos and freaks.’

Craft was couture level

At a preview for his latest Dior Men collection – which was inspired by the South African ceramicist Hylton Nel – Kim Jones noted a growing desire from his consumers to have something entirely one-of-a-kind. ’People want something that nobody else has got,’ he said. It was part of the reason he introduced his first dedicated couture collection for men last season and, while his S/S 2025 show in Paris did not have any official couture pieces – he has said he will create a couture collection only once each year – one particular jacket took over 600 hours of hand-embroidery to complete. A similar veneration of craft came at Loewe, where intricate tabard-style tops were crafted from woven metal or delicate shards of shell, an echo of the extraordinary 'caviar' beaded pieces from his A/W 2024 womenswear collection where each of the thousands of tiny beads were embroidered by hand. Equally seductive was the simplicity of Norbert Stumpfl’s latest Brioni collection, shown in the serene gardens of Milan’s 18th-century Palazzo Borromeo d'Adda. There, his ongoing quest for lightness – a signature of his tenure at the Italian house – was formulated in the collection’s fabrications, which spanned featherweight wools, supple perforated leather and airy vicuña knits. Most spectacular, though, was the eveningwear, where one double-breasted dinner jacket was embroidered with 10,000 baguette beads, each one hand-knotted in silk thread.

But there was still a slice of reality, too

If the enthusiasm for ‘quiet luxury’ has tempered in recent months, there nonetheless remained an appetite for the particular pleasure of real clothes – perhaps best epitomised in Paris by Auralee, Ryota Iwai’s Tokyo-based label which celebrates ten years in business this year. In its relative normality – there were no tricks here, just sweaters, jeans, and the like – it was impossibly desirable, the type of collection which makes you want to throw out your entire wardrobe and start again. It is down to Iwai’s exacting but uncomplicated approach, where tactile, meticulously sourced fabrics (Peruvian Alpaca, Mongolian cashmere, New Zealand wool, Indian cotton) meet a sensitive, considered palette (this season: pale green, red, buttercup yellow) which makes it anything but boring. ‘People put a lot of pressure onto their clothing, perhaps hoping to make a huge statement but I’m more interested in how smaller changes can highlight something about the wearer,’ Iwai told Wallpaper* prior to the show.

There is nothing normal about Hermès – and yet, despite Veronique Nichanian’s dedication to painstaking craft and truly luxurious fabrications, her collections end up feeling entirely effortless, and even thrown on. This season, she said she wanted to evoke ’a sweet summer’, and as ever there were plenty of real-world clothes here: breezy Oxford shirts, blouson jackets and bowling-style knits – in a palette of blues and pale pink – would fit into any man’s wardrobe. The same goes for Dries Van Noten, who has made a career of instilling the quotidian with a louche romance. His final show – earlier this year Van Noten announced he would be leaving his namesake label after 38 years – was a celebration of this, presenting a final collection which captured the designer’s distinct eye for colour and tactility. For this, he will be missed. ’This is my 129th show; like the previous ones, it looks ahead. Tonight is many things, but it is not a grand finale,’ he said. ‘Creating is about leaving something that lives on.’

The suit is still ripe for reinvention

Each season, it feels like there is a diktat on the suit: it is double- or single-breasted, narrow or full, cropped at the ankle or pinched at the waist (as such, it often deemed emblematic of the season’s mood). For S/S 2025, though, there was little consensus, except that the suit remains ripe for reinvention, as designers across the board riffed on the garment in differing and distinctive ways. At Loewe, the show opened with razor-sharp black tailoring, evocative of the uniforms of security guards or gallery attendants. ‘This is my own interpretation of precision,’ said the designer, who noted inspiration from the ‘singular’ creative vision of figures like Paul Thek, Peter Hujar and Susan Sontag, whose work populated the show space. But there was illusion at play here, too: the fabric, a woven silk mohair, was designed to hold its shape with an almost-spongey finish. ‘These are things [that] are incredibly difficult to do but that which when you see them it feels effortless,’ he said.

There was experimentation of a different kind at Junya Watanabe, where the Japanese designer’s paean to denim included classic wool tailoring spliced with the fabric for an intriguing hybrid. Meanwhile at fellow Japanese label Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo’s Homme Plus collection contained plenty of tailoring cut in the designer’s cerebral manner, whether sliced-apart tailored jackets adorned with ruffle-like collars, or those out of which flashes of vividly coloured lining emerged. Colours were equally vivid at Issey Miyake Homme Plissé, where double-breasted blazers, waistcoats and ties were crafted from the brand’s signature lightweight knife pleats in crisp shades of green, orange and blue. Entirely crease-resistant, and undeniably easy in their roomy, stretchy silhouettes, they will prove a useful companion next summer. And, for the brave, so too will Gucci’s super-abbreviated tailored short shorts, part of a youthful S/S 2025 collection which creative director Sabato De Sarno said was inspired by the ’freedom, energy [and] community’ of surfing.

Sportswear was given an Olympics boost

Even for the most sports-averse, it was near-impossible to avoid the looming summer of sporting events ahead on menswear’s European tour – whether the Euros (which Emporio Armani hosted screenings of in both Milan and Paris), or the Olympics. The latter, taking place in Paris later this month, felt particularly prescient, not least because Parisian luxury goods conglomerate LVMH is one of the event’s principal sponsors. Unsurprisingly, then, Pharrell Williams evoked the Olympic spirit at his third menswear show at Louis Vuitton, which was held at Maison l’Unesco and made a plea for global unity and community (in fact, if you squinted, you could see the Olympic rings adorning the Eiffel Tower in the distance). ‘[It is] the celebration of human athletic prowess,’ said the designer, who featured several football kits adorned with ‘LVFC’. Meanwhile, at Wales Bonner, the British designer continued her successful collaboration with Adidas Originals, which here featured a shimmering sequinned version of the brand’s Samba sneaker, alongside slouchy basketball shorts and hoodies, striped polos and – most memorably – a pair of three-stripe swim trunks. And at Gucci, Sabato De Sarno’s surfing inspirations made for a collection of sleek, graphic menswear in sporty, luminous tones – including one of the season’s most covetable accessories: sunglasses on fluoro straps, worn like chokers around the neck.

‘Beautiful chaos,’ is how Adrian Joffe describes the ‘credo’ of Dover Street Market, the unconventional fashion store that he opened with his wife, Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo, on London’s Dover Street in 2014. Part of the Comme des Garçons umbrella – the Japanese fashion label known for its avant-garde collections and anti-fashion approach – Dover Street Market, which now has outposts around the world, has always struck a similar mood. Featured designers and brands straddle both establishment and counterculture, while the ever-changing, inventive interiors feature not only clothing but installations and pop-ups spanning art, photography and literature, even food.

The store’s latest outpost – which marks the eighth Dover Street Market – is revealed today (10 May 2024), before its opening later this month on 24 May 2024. ’[It is] an experiment in un-understanding,’ says Joffe, who serves as the store’s president, noting that the Marais location marks a departure of sorts from the existing Dover Street Market outposts, whereby brands have been separated into individual concessions. Here, the entire space – including the requisite Rose Bakery café – is designed by Kawakubo.

Inside the new Dover Street Market Paris

It lends the store – which is housed in the 17th-century Hôtel de Coulanges, once resided in by French writer Madame de Sevigné – a starker appearance than the existing locations, which have a collage-like appearance thanks to the market-like concessions. Here, Kawakubo says she wants the store design itself to be the statement, with a focus not on selling garments – no clothes will be visible from the street, for example – but rather a space in which shoppers can immerse themselves. ‘We have arrived at a place, not a forest nor a plateau, not a valley nor a peak. Just a place with a beautiful view of behind and above,’ explains Joffe (Kawakubo did not want to be quoted about the project). ’And from this station-location, we try to feel where we go next.’

So the various brands – including the entire Comme des Garçons roster, which also features Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya – will be mixed together across the various floors (other brands include Simone Rocha, Rick Owens, Prada, JW Anderson, Willy Chavarria, Craig Green, Wales Bonner and Kiko Kostadinov, among several others). The idea is for the shopper to immerse themselves in the curving, labyrinthine displays, which recall the recently opened Comme des Garçons store on Paris’ Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré – also conceived by Kawakubo – where the designer said she wanted to invite a mood of discovery, a place to explore and experiment.

’It will not be only another shop,’ says Joffe. ’It is in fact already a building in which we hope to build and open a new pathway ahead, building on everything we have accomplished and daring to tread in the unknown. A building that already contains a brand development division and spaces to do all kinds of actions to create an energy-synergy syntax.’

The store itself – spanning 1,100 sq m and centring around a courtyard set back from the road – occupies the ground and first floors of the building, as well as one of three basements. The other two basements will be reserved for art and community events, while the upper floors will be occupied by Dover Street Market’s brand development team. An exhibition by Paolo Roversi, celebrating his longtime collaboration with Comme des Garçons, will celebrate the opening.

’Too many explanations can detract from the own-eye-witnessing,’ concludes Joffe. ’I am impatient for all of you to discover it.’

Dover Street Market Paris, 35-37, rue des Francs-Bourgeois, Paris 75004, opens on 24 May 2024.

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Comme des Garçons fans, rejoice – a newly opened store at number 56 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris provides a four-storey European outpost for the Rei Kawakubo-led brand, featuring lines previously only available in Japan. 

The gleaming 800 sq m store is on the same street as the brand’s previous Paris location, which was housed in a courtyard set back from the famous luxury shopping street. The new location is street-facing, cementing the 1969-founded brand – which now serves as an umbrella for other labels, including Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya, alongside the international Dover Street Market stores – as one of fashion’s major international players. 

‘Explore and experiment’: inside Comme des Garçons Paris

The typically conceptual retail space centres on vast white columnar displays which house Comme des Garçons’ various collections and lines – including Homme Plus, Shirt, Girl and Parfums, among others, as well as offerings from Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya. Sleek red and white walls intersect the space, which like the brand’s other outposts is designed for an explorative experience, whereby items are waiting to be discovered amid a twisting layout.

The store will also stock Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons furniture line, reissued for the first time in nearly three decades. The initial offering comprises three 1987-designed metal chairs, which are exclusive to the location (it will be the only place in the world where the furniture line will be available for purchase). The designer’s various pieces of furniture have become much-coveted collector’s items over the years; in 2017, a selection went on display at Didier Courbot’s A1043 gallery in Paris.

‘This is furniture that was designed around the idea of transit,’ he told Wallpaper* at the time. ‘[Kawakubo] thought of it as temporary furniture and I love that idea – that you might sit, but only for five minutes. There’s this idea of movement.’ 

The store, which is designed by Kawakubo herself alongside the Comme de Garçons team, is around 50 per cent bigger than the previous Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré location and provides a precursor of sorts to the brand’s next project – a Paris Dover Street Market outpost in the city’s Marais district, following locations in Tokyo, London, New York, Beijing and Los Angeles. It is set to open in early 2024.

For now, Dover Street Market’s presence in Paris consists a dedicated ’Parfums’ store on Bis Rue Elzévir in the 3rd arrondissement which opened in 2019, housing not only Comme des Garçons vast range of fragrances but also beauty and scents from brands including Byredo, Costa Brazil and Thom Browne. 

Comme des Garçons, 56 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, is open now.

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Rose perfumes have traditionally been characterised as the olfactory equivalent to pop music – guaranteed crowdpleasers, easily accessible. Recently, however, a host of niche perfumers and big-name brands have been experimenting with rose fragrances, taking the ubiquity of the scent as a challenge to create perfumes that subvert exceptions and offer a new perspective on an old classic.

Here, we sniff out the best of these experimental rose scents.  

Café Rose by Tom Ford

Tom Ford’s newest rose fragrance, Café Rose, leans heavily into its ingredients’ gourmand factor. Put together as an unlikely yet complementary combination of coffee and rose, the scent conveys an untamed sensuality that pairs refined Turkish rose essence with that of dark coffee. Opening with a floral accord, which also includes rose Bulgaria and ylang ylang, the scent gives way to a spicier heart of coriander, cardamom and patchouli, and ends in hints of incense resin and sandalwood. The perfume’s unexpected character carries through to its flaçon, a semi-transparent fluted pink bottle with a rose pink top and plaque.  

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Rose by Perfumer H

Perfumer H's Rose perfume is masterfully composed to smell exactly like its namesake. A high concentration of rose oil and absolute are combined with camomile Romaine, raspberry, geranium Egypt and a hint of iris and musk to create a luscious fragrance.  Spraying it on your skin is probably the closest you can ever come to actually wearing roses. 

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Elisabethan Rose

Leave it to the quintessential English perfume brand, Penhaligion's, to create an exceptional rose fragrance inspired by the flower of England— the Tudor rose. Inspired by the union of the houses York and Lancaster, Elizabethan Rose blends its central fragrance with Red Lily, Hazelnut Leaf, and Vetiver. It’s a light and airy floral perfect for those who prefer delicate fragrances. 

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Rosa Carnivora and Raving Rose by Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten’s newly launched beauty line (which debuted in Wallpaper* earlier this month) includes two rose perfumes that embody  the Belgian designer’s penchant for ‘impossible combinations.’ 

Rosa Carnivora, by perfumer Daphné Bugey, is a creamy blend of rose, vetiver, and patchouli, while Raving Rose, by perfumer Louise Turner, is a spicy take on the flower with a near startling infusion of pepper. The two fragrances ‘are kind of a kick in your face’, according to Van Noten with Rosa Carnivora a good match for those who prefer a more classically elegant rose fragrance and Raving Rose a good option for those who like more punchier, masculine scents.  

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Odeur Du Théâtre Du Châtelet by Comme des Garçons

Conceptualism has always been at the heart of Comme des Garçons’ fragrances, with scents designed to evoke the ink of a calligrapher’s studio, lime soda, and ‘grilled cigarettes teamed with town gas’. With Odeur Du Théâtre Du Châtelet – inspired by the Paris theatre – the brand once again presents an ‘anti-perfume’ that challenges common notions of what makes a smell pleasurable. 



The rose perfume was composed by perfumer Caroline Dumur in collaboration with Comme des Garçons’ founder Rei Kawakubo, and the Théâtre Du Châtelet’s then-artistic director Ruth Mackenzie (she left the theatre in August 2020). The aim of the project was to create a scent that captured the historic character of the theatre while hinting at its modern incarnation. The result blends the intensely rich, musky-floral notes of ambrette absolute with rose oxyd, black pepper oil, and coffee accord. 

It’s a curiously appealing fragrance, designed to evoke the theatre’s velvet seats, infused with the powdery, floral perfumes of its 19th-century audience layered with the modern, spicy fragrances favoured by modern theatregoers. Like all Comme des Garçons creations, it’s equal parts unexpected and beguiling.

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Eau de Parfum Eau Rose by Diptyque 

Newly reformatted Eau Rose perfume features two of perfumery’s mainstay roses – damascena and centifolia – alongside the fiard, an unusual third rose, in the form of an upcycled extract made from damascena rosewater discarded during the distillation process. More unexpected still is the inclusion of chamomile, artichoke and litchi, making for a bright, juicy rose perfume. 

spacenk.com

Rose 31 by Le Labo 

Le Labo’s Rose 31 perfume aims to transform the traditionally feminine Grasse Rose into an ‘assertively virile’ fragrance by blending it with warm and spicy notes of cumin, cedar and amber. Most interesting is the inclusion of musty cistus which gives Rose 31 a distinctly animal note. It’s an appealing alternative to Le Labo’s iconic Santal 33 with a warmer, and much less ubiquitous, aroma. 

harrods.com

Georgette by Vyrao

Wearing Vyrao's Georgette perfume is the olfactory equivalent of diving into a pool of rose petals. The fragrance is weighty with Turkish rose accords, violet leaf, sandalwood and patchouli, with grounding base notes of pink pepper and black tobacco. 

What makes this perfume really stand out, however, is its use of Herkimer diamond crystals and integrative quantum medicine to take the healing principals of aromatherapy to a new level. The brand has ‘energetically charged’ each fragrance with the help of healer Louise Mita, whose practice combines Traditional Chinese Medicine techniques, Qi Gong, anatomical studies, and quantum theory to ‘unblock’ bad energies. While rose oil is meant to inspire enlightenment, violet leaf encourags self-expression, and guaiac wood clears energy.  

selfridges.com

Young Rose by Byredo 

Young Rose is the latest fragrance launch from Byredo. When creating the scent, Byredo’s founder, Ben Gorham, was inspired by the work of young creatives working in China today, including photographer Leslie Zhang who shot the Young Rose campaign images. 

The fragrance blends piquant notes of Sichuan pepper with Damask rose and Orris for a spicy take on a classic floral. ‘The next generation always has an emotional obligation to rework the traditions of their predecessors,’ says Gorham. ‘It’s their role to take that fearless dive into the unknown; to discover and develop what’s next. Young Rose salutes that spirit.’ 

cultbeauty.com

Doll by Mondo Mondo 

Mondo Mondo is perhaps best known for its gold and gem jewellery that looks ornate enough to belong on a Renaissance noblemen but with enough hearts and rhinestones that it appeals to a modern, cheeky sensibility. That baroque and playful spirit is on full display in the brand’s line of perfumes as well. 

Doll is a rose perfume that combines Bulgarian rose and rose de mai with saffron and musk to create a scent that verges on the overwhelming. It is a fragrance best suited to those who like to make a statement, ‘a hot, sweaty, electric rose,’ in the brands words. One that ‘will conjure an undeniable nostalgia for being a little brat.’ 

mondo-mondo.com

L'Heure Osée by Cartier

Cartier’s master perfumer, Mathilde Laurent, once again shows off her knack for artistry and innovation with L'Heure Osée. Laurent has spoken openly about her dislike of roses, what she calls ‘an emblem of femininity withered before it blooms,’ and so it is no surprise that her creation for Cartier is the antithesis of a typical rose perfume. 

A heavy dose of citrus notes gives L'Heure Osée a powerful punch, while notes of musk and hints of wood create a heady undertone. It is, in the brand’s words, a distinctly ‘un-cute’ rose fragrance. 

net-a-porter.com

L’Homme À La Rose by Maison Francis Kurkdjian

Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s L’Homme À La Rose is a is a masculine take on a scent traditionally typecast as one of the most feminine in perfumery. As such, it is a fascinating examination of the construct of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ in fragrance.  

As Kurkdjian told Wallpaper* last year, what makes a scent ‘masculine’ is ultimately a question of timing. ‘What is masculine today may not have been masculine a decade ago and it may not be masculine two or three decades from now. The idea of masculinity and femininity, they are conventions and they are concepts that evolve with society.’ 

To create the essence of modern masculinity in this scent, Kurkdjian blends rose with citrusy grapefruit accord, heady amber woods, and fresh sage.  

franciskurkdjian.com

Rose & Cuir by Frederic Malle

Rose & Cuir is the handiwork of Jean-Claude Ellena, the former in-house perfumer for Hermès and a longtime Frederic Malle collaborator. With his characteristic ingenuity, Ellena has created a rose fragrance that is on the surface a unique, but not altogether revolutionary, interpretation of the floral that blends rose essence with pepper and cassis.

Give it time, however, and the scent eventually takes on an earthy, almost leathery quality, thanks to the use of vetiver and cedar. Most exceptional of all is its incorporation of IsoButyl Quinoline, an intensely bitter molecule that has been little used since its heyday in the 1920s.

libertylondon.com

Unrequited by Bel Rebel 

Ever wonder what those garish plastic roses sold on city sidewalks would smell like if they actually had a fragrance? Probably not, but if your curiosity is now piqued, pick up a bottle of Bel Rebel’s Unrequited. 

The scent has top notes of overtly synthetic-smelling rose oxide, and aldehydes, a chemical compound frequently used in perfumery. These are mixed with base notes of saffron and musks to create a smell that balances between plasticine and musky. 

belrebel.com

Celtic Rose by Alexander McQueen 

Leave it to the radical house of Alexander McQueen to design a rose perfume that eschews the classic simplicity of its counterparts. Celtic Rose draws its name from a traditional Celtic pattern, which weaves together multiple geometric forms to create a unified, perfectly symmetrical rose shape.

Both the pattern and the fragrance owe their allure to the complexity of their design. McQueen’s Celtic Rose takes a classic, delicate rose fragrance and adds a punch of black pepper to create a spicy floral.

harrods.com

As New York Fashion Week A/W 2025 continues, our ongoing edit of the best fashion stores New York has to offer, selected with input from the city’s most fashionable and design-conscious residents. Whether rare vintage finds, downtown designers, or big-name boutiques, consider it your ultimate New York shopping guide.

The best fashion stores New York has to offer

Collina Strada

Cult New York-based label Collina Strada has opened its first physical space on Downtown’s Canal Street, a small but immersive store which captures Hillary Taymour’s offbeat spirit (in a recent interview, she called it a ‘Collina salad’). Alongside Taymour’s colourful, nonconformist collections – from naively hand-drawn motifs on hoodies to twisted jersey tees and flourishes of lace and tulle – the store features surreal custom mouldings by photographer Ryan Petrus, an undulating central table by designer and friend of the label Misha Kahn, and a floral shellac floor by artist Justin Hager. Opening just in time for fashion week (February 2025), expect it to become a hangout for Collina Strada’s growing community – among them brand muses model Aaron Rose Philip and actress Hari Nef, who both appeared in Taymour’s recent A/W 2025 runway show. JM

52 Canal St, New York, NY 10002

collinastrada.com

Climax

Isabella Burley opened the New York outpost of Climax, a distributor of rare books, ephemera and erotica, this past September (a ‘sexy, angry bookworm’ cut-out designed by London-based fashion label Chopova Lowena was the mascot for its inauguration). In the six months since, it has been a gathering spot for the New York fashion scene, with Paloma Elsesser, Tyler the Creator, Kelsey Lu, Simone Rocha and Sofia Coppola all photographed brandishing the store’s signature hot pink shopping bag. Elsewhere, Burley – previous editor-in-chief of Dazed and current CMO of Acne Studios – has launched a like of ‘bookworm’ merch and created a capsule collection of Climax clothing with Chopova Lowena. ‘The best thing [about Climax] is that I have so many friends who are photographers, stylists or creative directors, and it's really fun for them to say to me, “Oh, I'm shooting this person”, and I can say, “Have you seen this book?” It feels nice to offer some sort of small reference point, and then you see the shoot or the issue come out, and know where those influences came from,’ she told Wallpaper*. JM

READ: Fashion’s favourite bookstore, Climax, opens a ‘sexy, angry’ New York outpost

56 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003

climaxbooks.com

Essx

Concept store Essx, located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, was founded by Laura Baker – a former merchandising director at American media company Complex – alongside Abe Pines and Yoel Zagelbaum, who started streetwear subscription box Scarce during the pandemic (delivered to customer’s doors, the parcels were filled with backstop and overstocked pieces which would otherwise have gone to waste). The sleek, sparse interiors were created by New York-based architecture firm Leong Leong alongside designer Yossi Shetrit and span 7000 sq m, where shoppers can browse pieces from the likes of Martine Rose, Mowalola, Maison Margiela, Jil Sander, Wales Bonner and more. The founders see it as a platform for discovering new names, as well as stocking the more conceptual offerings of better-known designers. ‘Essx’s mission is to show the connection between art and fashion, and culture and commerce,’ Baker previously told Wallpaper*. ‘We believe in empowering individuality while sustaining growth through partnerships, innovation and influence.’ JM

READ: Essx store opens in New York’s Lower East Side

140 Essex Street New York City, NY 10002

essxnyc.com

John Lobb

Historic British shoemaker John Lobb is known for its dedication to hand-craft – each shoe is made by a complex 190-step manufacturing process – an approach it brings to its outpost on New York’s Madison Avenue. Whether you are in the market for a new pair of shoes or simply seeking a momentary respite from the hubbub of the famed shopping district, the serene walnut wood-clad space is an exercise in timeless, considered design. The brainchild of French architecture studio Ciguë – and following refreshed John Lobb stores in Paris and Beverly Hills – its elegant, mid-century-influenced interiors features wall hangings inspired by the work of Uruguayan artist Gonzalo Fonseca and sofas by French designer Christophe Delcourt. Alongside a range of ready-to-wear footwear, bespoke suites allow shoppers to commission their own unique pair from reams of leather samples, colour charts and soles, while previous John Lobb clients can return for repair. JM

READ: Inside John Lobb’s timelessly elegant New York flagship, a trove for shoe lovers

700 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10065

johnlobb.com

Founded in 2018, with its true launch in August 2021, Frank Ocean’s independent jewellery and accessories brand made its home in Chinatown within the five-storey New York Jewellers Exchange building. Glass and metal vitrines house Homer’s fine and high jewellery, such as a turquoise enamel pendant in the shape of a doll inlaid with lab-grown diamonds, with some accessories such as silk scarves in the space designed in collaboration with Michael Abel and Nile Greenberg of ANY. Some of the pieces reach six figures: Ocean reportedly once said he wants nothing to be less expensive than Cartier.

70-74 Bowery, New York, NY 10013

homer.com

Café Forgot

‘Café Forgot came about after years of wanting to show our friend’s work and reminiscing about our high school fashion club and the small boutiques we loved growing up in New York,’ says Lucy Weisner, co-founder of Café Forgot along with Vita Haas. ‘Our first store was a week-long pop-up at a friend’s ground-floor studio space on Suffolk Street. We did a shoot, reached out to our friends who were making interesting clothes and accessories, and got an Instagram up and running. After that, we did pop-ups in different locations in New York about four times a year for a few years.’ They also run a great magazine-style website. For the past two years, they have had a more permanent shopfront on Ludlow Street designed by the architecture firm ANY, which features a motorised display that rotates at the turn of a literal giant button (created by artist Sam Stewart). ‘Café Forgot is dedicated to carrying the work of emerging designers that work outside typical fashion production models through handmade, one-of-kind, or limited-run pieces from found or recycled textiles,’ they say. Speaking of dedication, the pair marked the founding of their business with tattoos: Haas has ‘Forgot,’ Weisner has ‘Café’.

25 Ludlow Street, New York, NY 10002

cafeforgot.com

The Row

The immaculate residential side street of East 71st, just a stone’s throw from Central Park, is as fitting a preamble as any to The Row’s stately Manhattan home. Far more than just a shop, the palatial townhouse has become a destination of its own for both fashion and furniture lovers. Designed in collaboration between founders Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and the interior architect Jacques Grange, it is discreetly outfitted with custom and sourced vintage and contemporary museum-grade furniture, art and design, which rotates over time. Exclusive collaborations, such as a limited run of ceramic planters by Grace Fuller Marroquin, and special items also pop up from time to time: currently, a small collection of Line Vautrin pieces (including some vintage jewellery designs which were styled with looks in the S/S 2023 runway presentation) are displayed and on sale. Ascend the spiralling grand limestone staircase to more womenswear, menswear, handbags and shoes, then close your eyes and pretend just for a moment it’s home.

17 East 71st Street, New York, NY 10021

therow.com

La Garçonne

A quiet yet consistent cornerstone of New York retail, La Garçonne was founded back in 2005, at a time when billboard brands were serving a more polished and overt version of luxury and over a decade before it found its own 4,000 sq ft home in Tribeca in 2014. Its white walled, raw-wood surrounds quickly became a church for those looking for a curated edit of pared-back, androgynous and masculine-feeling clothes from established designers as well as emerging names from around the globe, such as Casey Casey, Auralee, and Toogood. ‘Our online and physical stores carry the same inventory in real time,’ says founder and creative director Kris Kim. ‘Clients can shop online or utilise the online platform as a guide for a personalised in-store experience.’ Homeware from French-American designer of the moment Sophie Lou Jacobsen and Tekla, and a small selection of clean beauty completes the offering.

465 Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10013

lagarconne.com

Maryam Nassir Zadeh

The beloved downtown New York designer Maryam Nassir Zadeh has managed to navigate the seemingly impossible: building an independent business that continually feels relevant and authentic while navigating fashion’s paradox of serving newness while prioritising longevity. Indeed, she opened her Lower East Side store in 2008 and regularly shows at New York Fashion Week, often casting friends to model in her show. Inside, a curated selection of hard-to-find designers (Cristaseya, Bless, SC103, All-In) as well as cult labels (Eckhaus Latta, Lemaire, Lauren Manoogian, Vaquera) sit alongside finds from her travels as well as the brand’s own offering.

123 Norfolk Street, New York, NY 10002

maryamnassirzadeh.com

Comme des Garçons, Chelsea

While Comme des Garçons has a presence dotted all over the city, by way of several standalone stores, Dover Street Market and its shop-in-shops at Bloomingdale’s and Saks, its Chelsea location on West 22nd Street is a particular treasure trove. Devised by Rei Kawakubo alongside Takao Kawasaki, Studio Morsa, and Future Systems (which tackled its now iconic façade and tunnel entrance), the store first opened in 1999 – back when the now-gentrified neighbourhood was in the nascent stages of transforming its industrial wasteland into rows of cutting-edge galleries – before undergoing a renovation in 2013. Devotees will delight in the comprehensive Comme offering of ready-to-wear, accessories and perfume from the very many CDG lines, including (but not exhaustively) Comme des Garçons, Homme Plus, Shirt, Homme, Homme Deux, Girl, Play as well as Junya Watanabe, Junya Watanabe Man, Tao and Noir Kei Ninomiya.

520 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011

Kallmeyer

The opening of Daniella Kallmeyer’s downtown store three years ago was one of the flag-bearing destinations that rang in Orchard Street’s renaissance. ‘It started as a pop-up over the summer of 2019, and quickly became the permanent retail home for our then-eight-year-old brand that fall,’ says the designer. Here, the understated uniform of New York’s art and fashion crowd can be browsed in a fittingly sophisticated arena, with its oversized dressing room, custom furniture and vintage fixtures. Kallmeyer works with local manufacturers and fabric warehouses to repurpose old fabrics and deadstock materials into best-selling styles, and you can often find styles from limited runs and in-store-only colourways exclusive to 83 Orchard Street. Alongside the collection, shoppers will find the designer’s favourite makers and brands of vintage and fine jewellery, artisan pop-up markets, and one-of-a-kind home objects for sale. Friendly staff dispel the preconceptions of downtown’s ‘too cool’ school, and private consultation appointments are also available, often with Kallmeyer herself or her team of experts – in particular as a ‘go-to for custom wedding suiting, particular amongst the queer community’.

83 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002

kallmeyer.nyc

James Veloria

‘Our store is a colourful, vibrant, queer safe space to play dress up and shop for avant-garde designer clothing at a reasonable price point,’ says Collin James Weber, co-founder of James Veloria. He and Brandon Veloria Giordano, his now-husband and partner of 13 years, opened the doors of their Chinatown vintage and contemporary pre-owned destination in July 2017. It’s easy to see why it's become a steadfast favourite of stylists, photographers and fashion enthusiasts: ‘We regularly showcase rotating special collections featuring pieces from specific eras of designers, such as Tom Ford at Gucci, Stella McCartney at Chloe and Michael Kors at Celine. We also partner with other vintage dealers we love, giving them a platform to showcase their curated collections to our community,’ says Weber. Operating well outside prescriptive trends or any fashion calendar, the store was born from, and continues to promote, the pure joy, pleasure and self-expression that clothing can be a portal to.

75 East Broadway, #225, New York, NY 10002

Dover Street Market New York

Following the theme of ‘beautiful chaos’, Comme des Garçons creative director and Dover Street Market co-founder Rei Kawakubo designs all the Dover Street Market shops. DSMNY landed in a characteristically odd and untrendy corner of Manhattan’s Kip’s Bay district (remember when you didn’t know where Mount Street was?) in 2013, nearly a decade after DSM London opened in 2004. Operating much like a gallery, twice a year in February and August the store completely closes to refresh its installations and offering, as well as undertaking more minor changes throughout the year. Thankfully, DSMNY reopened with its ‘New Beginning’ theme just ahead of New York Fashion Week A/W 2023. Be sure to visit the Manhattan outpost of Rose Bakery while you’re there, the beloved vegetarian Parisian-founded café by Rose Carrarini and her husband Jean-Charles Carrarini.

160 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10016

newyork.doverstreetmarket.com

180 The Store

Housed in a former dairy factory in the heart of Tribeca with giant skylights that drench the minimal space in light, 180 The Store is much more than a shop. ‘Our two-level space is a platform for our network of brands and creators to experiment, to showcase, to exhibit, and host events and activations exclusive to 180,’ says founder Denise Williamson. ‘I wanted to create a place that brought our clients into the worlds of my favourite artists, designers, and craftsmen; an intentional selection of quality pieces for a life well-lived.’ The emphasis is on an edit of products for all aspects of life – whether a new piece for your wardrobe, art for your collection, wares for your kitchen, furniture or fragrance, all from Williamson's pick of makers from around the world. This includes fashion buys from Japanese labels for men and women, like Chimala and Cottle, as well as cult favourites such as Sofie D’Hoore and lifestyle products from Frama, R+D Lab, Savvy Studio, and Arjé, as well as rare, one-of-a-kind pieces from makers like Fabio Vogel and Kosi Hidama.

180 Duane Street, New York, NY 10013

180thestore.com

Desert Vintage

‘We think of Desert Vintage as a shoppable museum dedicated to sartorial history. Each piece is unique and with its own story and it's those stories we love to share with our clients,’ says co-owner Roberto Cowan who took over the 1974-founded business with Salima Boufelfel in 2012. ‘Our selection is full of archival designer vintage as well as antique clothing. Generally, things that are hard to find multiples of and, in a sense, that lends to our offering being one of a kind. It also means our racks are constantly changing and rotating. Every week new treasures can be found.’ Originally opening in Tucson, Arizona, the current owners landed on Orchard Street in February 2022. The eclectic edit reflects Arizona’s dusky landscape in a way that suits the city, with a focus on understated colours and natural materials – browse a cream Hermès button-down, a Romeo Gigli trapeze coat, a 1960s YSL terracotta cord safari jacket, a Zoran cappuccino silk skirt, as well as handpicked vintage from the turn-of-the-century through the 1970s.

34 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002

desertvintage.com

Supreme, Brooklyn

Thursday is drop day (those who know join the waitlist on Tuesdays). Others come just to watch or use the indoor skate bowl, designed by New York architect Neil Logan. When Supreme opened its Williamsburg store in October 2017 in a renovated former warehouse, the streets around were filled with New York’s coolest skaters and fans, and its popularity shows no signs of abating – few, if any, brands have managed to emulate the kind of organic hype that this skate brand, ney, religion, has.

152 Grand Street, Brooklyn, New York, NY 11249

supreme.com

Surf style got a sophisticated update for summer, as brands from Saint Laurent to Casablanca embraced tropical motifs, shell details and an insouciant sun-drenched spirit. Been dreaming of sinking your toes into sand? Here we present the standout surf-inspired styles for high season, whether you're riding big waves, boogie boarding or simply soaking up the sun on the shore.

Your surf style shopping list

Trousers, by Gramicci x Brain Dead

Surf-centric trousers haven't got a patch on these splice and diced styles by Gramicci x Brain Dead's collaboration. These styles are also sublimely suited to rock climbing, should you look for an activity away from the shoreline.

wearebraindead.com

Flip-flops, by Sleeper

Surf devotees Nina and Frode are such fans of the sea that the Norweigan couple have launched Sleepers, an ocean plastic prohibiting flip-flop brand which creates colourful styles produced using natural tree rubber, tapped in Sri Lanka using Fairly Traded processes. Slip into a pair when you’re next taking in the beauty of the shore.

shop-sleepers.com

Cashmere hoody, by The Elder Statesman

Cashmere and bold colour, what could be more sunset ready? The Elder Statesman embodies the spirit of California with its laid back, prismatic pieces. Should you loan it to a windswept friend, we urge you to ensure it is returned.

mrporter.com

Stussy Laguna Beach, by Stussy and Comme des Garçons Parfums

Craving some Californian sun? We suggest a spritz of Stussy and Comme des Garçons Parfums' Laguna Beach eau de toilette. The fragrance offers a heady hit of marine freshness, that will transport you to Orange County's coastal shores, with notes of moss, atlas cedar and white solar flowers.

Surfboard, by Casablanca

There's an escapist spirit behind French brand Casablanca. The brand's latest offering is an ode to Hawaiian surf style, and features two single and double fin bespoke surfboards, crafted in Biarritz, by French-Moroccan shaper Terry André and surfer Yann Summers .

Board shorts, by Aries

Draw attention on sea or sand in Aries' Ikat board shorts. These styles tap into the London brand's love of logo prints and patterns, and their colourful glitchy motifs have a nostalgic 1990s nod, that will suit the mesmerising spirit of a sunset.

Shirt, by Saturdays NYC

This New York label has long had a synergy with a laid-back surfing spirit. This short sleeve checkerboard shirt has a retro-casual sensibility, and is accented with geometric peace signs for a Summer of Love sensibility.

Bucket hat, by Celine

Part of a collaboration with American painter Mr Gregory Edwards, this Celine bucket hat is inspired by the 2010 piece 'Stranded in the Jungle'. Its animal instinct will protect your face from sun and wind.

Bracelet, by Saint Laurent

Saint Laurent complemented its Hawaiian shirts and palm frond-swathed bomber jackets with beach-combed accessories. Case in point, this DIY leather bracelet, accented with cowrie shells and metal skulls.

Bag, by Loewe Paula's Ibiza

Loewe's Paula's Ibiza collection evokes the escapism of the balmy Balearics Islands. Jonathan Anderson's summer offering celebrates the wonders of Mediterranean wildlife, featuring bags inspired by the forms of turtles, octopuses, lizards and parrots.

Jacket, by Bode

The upcycled patchwork pieces in Bode's twill jacket give this colourful style a time-worn appeal. Its hand drawn illustrations and felt flourishes are sure to make for a conversation-starting cover up on the shore.

Sunglasses, by Oakley

Leave it to Oakley to offer an all weather and activity proof style of sunglasses. These wraparound Encoder shades come available with Prizm lenses, guaranted to enhance colour and contrast when you're taking in the skyline.

Pendleton's plush cotton terry towel in bold patterning will softly dry you down after a swim. The practical way to transport your post-wave warmer? This two-person towel comes complete with its own clip-in holder.

Slides, by Keen x Engineered Garments

Picture sinking into sand in these woven wonders. Keen x Engineered Garment's crafty collaboration has a comfort-focus too. These styles have an adjustable drawstring toggle and a cushioned sole. 

It is fair to say that Comme des Garçons perfumes are atypical. Past creations have cited as influences the smell of concrete, gasoline, and the velvet seats of a 19th-century theatre. So intrigue abounds when the ultimate brand for experimental perfumes decides to create something as typical as a ‘summer fragrance’. Will its idea of summer perfume smell like a burning flip-flop? A snow cone abandoned in the sand? Flat soda? 

Sunscreen, the summer perfume

In actuality, the new fragrance smells, as its name suggests, like sunscreen. It also smells like vanilla ice cream, the ocean, and coconut water all mixed together in one.

That might sound like a sensory overload, but there is a cohesion to these various elements that makes Sunscreen work. Like most Comme des Garçons creations, it is captivating because of its strangeness, not in spite of it. 

ERL x Comme des Garçons

Sunscreen has been made in collaboration with Californian fashion label ERL and marks the brand’s first foray into fragrance. ERL is the brainchild of Eli Russell Linnetz who, before he was invited to start a clothing line by Comme des Garçons president Adrian Joffe, was best known as a photographer, music video director, and set designer for some of Los Angeles’ most recognisable residents.

ERL is in many ways an homage to Linnetz’s native city, and Venice Beach in particular, with an emphasis on 1990s skatewear silhouettes rendered in a technicolour palette. 

Venice Beach is the main inspiration behind Sunscreen too, making it an addition to a growing range of perfumes inspired by the Californian coast (Louis Vuitton’s On the Beach is the most notable of this genre, along with Byredo’s Sundazed). It is not even the first California beach perfume for Comme des Garçons, following the launch of the brand’s Laguna Beach-themed collaboration with Stüssy earlier this year.  

Yet Stüssy’s Laguna Beach fragrance, with its notes of moss, Atlas cedar, and white solar flowers, is a much more aquatic, floral scent in relation to ERL’s. 

Sunscreen, rather, is a gourmand fragrance, a sweet, potent blend of lily of the valley, heliotrope (which smells like a mix of vanilla, almond and cinnamon) and peach, along with richer notes of musk and coconut accord. To put it another way, Laguna Beach is the smell of tranquil days spent by the ocean, while Sunscreen is the beach party. 

It is a welcome addition to the Comme des Garçons Parfums catalogue in our opinion, a unique type of summer fragrance that successfully walks the line between wearable and experimental.

INFORMATION

comme-des-garcons-parfum.com

Chemistry is an essential element of any collaboration, but the partnership between Comme des Garçons' Rei Kawakubo and hair artist Julien D'Ys is something more akin to alchemy. For more than 30 years, the two artists, renowned for their individualistic visions, have unified to create some of the most remarkable spectacles in fashion – with very little conversation involved.

Sometimes, Kawakubo will share a single word with D'Ys, from which he'll build his elaborate designs. Last year, the word was ‘black'; another time it was ‘invisible'. For this year's Fall 2021 Ready-to-wear collection it was nothing at all. Often D'Ys doesn't even see the clothes until the day before the show when the bulk of his work is finished.

‘No word, no direction,' says D'Ys. ‘Like always with Rei. and I had to find her new ideas. I started with three drawings and sent them to her. Then she sent me back her favorite drawing and from there I had to find the right wigs.'

This year, the right wigs were a series of jet black mullets, with long straight hair in the back and a halo of spikes in the front. D'Ys inspiration was a visual mashup of 1970s England and Pre-Revolution France, dramatically different time periods united in their penchant for extravagant hair. 

‘My idea was English hair cuts, kind of punk, Sex Pistols, and Bowie,' says D'Ys. ‘Then Mozart and the marvellous 18th century. I always like to mix different periods, past and future.'

Below, he offers us an exclusive look inside his New York studio in the days leading up to the latest Comme des Garçons show. The space is home to D'Ys wigs and his plethora of notebooks, which he fills with sketches, polaroids, poems, debris, anything that inspires him in the creation of his show designs.

Inspiration can be hard to come by during down time. Now that the usual fixes for a creative dry spell – meeting with friends, visiting a gallery, taking a meditative stroll – are no longer options, the quickest creative pick me up is to check in on what other people are up to.

Hair artist Julien D’ys is one person never low on artistic output. Over the years, he has amassed hundreds of notebooks all bursting with sketches, paintings and photographs that have formed the basis of his work with Comme des Garçons, John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld and Marni, to name a few. ‘My notebook is like my brain,’ D’ys says. ‘I draw, I think, from there I built my idea and bring it in life.’

Included here are some of the sketches D’ys made in preparation for the 2020 Marni and Comme des Garçons shows. For Marni, the inspiration was ‘Alice in Wonderland mix with acid and rave, rebel kids,' with colours drawn from the work of ‘Egon Schiele and some Russian paintings.' The end result, a gang of  lanky models dripping with glitter and paint, their sinewy hair lacquered to their faces as if they just emerged from a crowded dance floor, was easily the beauty sensation of Milan Fashion Week.

The concept for Comme was far more simple but no less striking. ‘For Comme des Garçons I always get one word from Rei and this time she said BLACK and I start from there. I made some drawings and from there I created wigs showered by black ink.’

In a time when you might have more time then ever, perhaps take a note from D’ys and pick up your pen or make up brush to make your own beautiful creations.

Rei Kawakubo has delved into the classic nature of Mikimoto pearls, infusing the cultured pearl strands with subtle subversion and creating a new design identity. Ropes of perfectly symmetrical, luminescent cultured South Sea and Akoya pearls are teasingly disrupted with dangling chains of solid silver, or by an unexpected doubling up of the pearl strings, while other strands see the Comme des Garçons logo hanging provocatively. 

Comme des Garçons president Adrian Joffe says there is natural symmetry in the partnership too: ‘Mikimoto approach design and production the same way we do. They work with only the best pearls in the world, and their unwavering commitment to quality was very important to Kawakubo san. As this is our first fine jewellery collaboration it was important that our ethos’ aligned.’

‘It refrains a little from design,’ explains Comme des Garçons founder, Rei Kawakubo. ‘But it is an exercise in creation, making something that looks good by emphasising the existing beauty of the pearl itself.’ The Mikimoto Comme des Garçons collaboration, which comprises seven pearl designs in total, launches in mid-February in both Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market boutiques around the globe, as well as in the Mikimoto Ginza flagship store.

INFORMATION

mikimoto.co.uk
comme-des-garcons.com

Mood board: In typical style, the esoteric Rei Kawakubo offered only a brief explanation of her lively A/W 20 collection: ‘colour resistance: fighting back with colour.’ Whether this was influenced by the angsty global political mood or the melee over identity we don’t know but the clothes had a festive, punky élan. They were easy and uncomplicated. Deconstructed, familiar in their archetypes yet fresh in their grouping. Cheery yet sincere.

Scene setting: The show was a chaos of prints and clashes of tailoring – bright leopard and plaid, glossy fabrics cut into sleeves of blazers. Harlequin patterns met animal print. Checks. Pink lining on coats. The collection felt like an all-consuming frenzied rush as the models walked out and skulked across the white box stage to the techno sound of Patterns In Nature by Swedish artist Julien H. Mulder. Perhaps Kawakubo was channelling the anxiety of international politics, perhaps she was scratching at the surface of a shallow, photo-rich age: ‘Poor images are dragged around the globe as commodities or their effigies, as gifts or as bounty. They spread pleasure or death threats, conspiracy theories or bootlegs, resistance or stultification. Poor images show the rare, the obvious, and the unbelievable—that is, if we can still manage to decipher it,’ the German artist Hito Steyerl wrote in 2009. Kawakubo’s opulent pattern and colour argued with themselves too. The clothes were just as layered, equally unsettled in their familiarity.

Finishing touches: There were elaborate elbows on evening jackets split open to reveal yonic folds: COMME des GARÇONS faux football strip branding was made into skirts. Rainbow-striped leggings and jackets were presented as if worn inside out. Jackets were hacked off to reveal the lining at the back or cropped to appear layered. Stiff gabardine against softer lining. The collection also featured the label's fifth consecutive collaboration with British creeper experts George Cox on a stacked zip-up creeper style.

Mood board: The show – named ‘Orlando' – was the second part of a three act project by the brand. The final stage will culminate in a series of costumes designed for the Vienna State Opera’s world premier of Orlando, composed by Olga Neuwirth. It is a version of Virginia Woolf’s gender defying 1928 novel which sees a poet travel through 300 years of history, starting as a nobleman under Elizabeth I’s reign, changing sex from male to female along the way. ‘My love of clothes interests me profoundly,' Woolf wrote in her diary in 1925. Rei Kawakubo’s interest spanned the Elizabethan era, 18th century, the modern age and the future, and her collection featured a series of bulbous, brocade heavy constructions, uncharacteristically adorned with 3D florals, flounces of tulle and macramé, or sporting protective padding, the Comme des Garçons and resplendent fringing.

Best in show: Of the more Elizabethan silhouettes, a bubble like pannier skirt was formed from a glittering bright blue and fuchsia jacquard paneled with a patchwork of golden squares. More futuristic was a sporty pair of leggings with bulging knee pads, paired with a tailored jacket and a rose red opera coat, embellished with frothy flounces of tulle resembling silk. This was escapist liberation of time through clothing.

Finishing touches: Models sported pretty patchwork ankle boots or delicate ballet flats with socks which tied up the leg like tiny gaiters.

Comme des Garçons S/S 2020.

Happy to plunder from the worlds of art, music and photography, Idris Kahn is something of a magpie. The 34-year-old takes everything from paintings to piano scores and transforms them into new works that feel startlingly fresh. In his 2005 Struggle to Hear… After Ludwig van Beethoven Sonatas, for example, overlain sheet music from Beethoven’s series becomes a dense wall of notes and staves, suggesting the composer’s encroaching deafness.

When Wallpaper* invited Khan to riff on another classic – Comme des Garçons’ iconic wallet design – his interest was piqued. ‘Although I didn’t know very much about Commes’ philosophy, I’ve always loved the clothes,’ he says. ‘And all their leather goods are very simple and elegant.’

With the loosest of briefs – to create something incredible out of dozens of the brand’s leather wallets, an evergreen in Rei Kawakubo’s product offering since the label’s launch in 1969 – Khan embarked on various printing experiments. ‘A lot of my work in the studio is based on obsessively stamping, so I thought that maybe I could print a few things on the surface of the wallet,’ he explains. ‘But, to be honest, it didn’t look great.’

This was followed by some Agnes Martin-style grids. ‘I really love her work and I tried to create a larger abstract piece, but that wasn’t really happening either,’ laughs Khan. ‘At this point, the whole thing began to defeat me a little bit.’

Khan then thought of Yves Klein. ‘I’d been thinking about the moment when he moved into sculptures and his use of colour,’ he says. However, it was only when Khan drafted in Annie Morris, fellow artist and, as it happens, his wife, that the project began to take form.

Morris’ work also plays with repetition, using everyday materials to make collages, paintings and sculptures. ‘She creates these beautiful stackworks from plaster and dried pigment,’ says Khan, ‘so she showed me exactly how to make them.’

Pregnant at the time, Morris took on a ‘sort of directing role,’ according to Khan. ‘She wasn’t allowed to touch much so she sat and dictated everything to me.’ Having cocooned the white leather wallets in Modroc tape and casting plaster, they were smothered with blue pigment. Khan then assembled a two metre-high vertical stack. ‘It’s a very simple shape, but it becomes a monumental object when you put all these pieces together,’ he says.

The wallets retain their original form – the pair left the signature zip-pull sticking out during the embalming process – but the resulting piece has a wonderfully transformative effect on the original material. ‘I think you look at the repetition and you look at the colour – that draws you in,’ says Khan. ‘It takes it out of the context of what the wallet was for and makes it into a piece of art.’

The piece, 88… After Klein, is a hit with the wallet’s creators. ‘Although we weren’t familiar with Khan’s work when Wallpaper* approached us, it seemed like a great idea,’ says Adrian Joffe, president of Comme des Garçons. ‘Now we love it.’

And for Khan and Morris, the project marks a landmark in their relationship. Though they have long shared a studio in East London, this was the first time they had worked together. ‘We always look to each other for inspiration and hopefully it’s changed our practices for the better,’ says Khan.’ I met Annie four years ago and was only doing photography before; now, I’ve just finished a 25ft painting. So, in some ways, everything we do is a collaboration.’

As well as upcoming solo shows for Khan at San Francisco’s Fraenkel gallery and Thomas Schulte in Berlin, the pair have recently contributed sculptural pieces to WWF and Phillips de Pury’s joint project ‘Pandamonium’. But will Khan and Morris ever dare to work together again? ‘Yes, absolutely,’ says Khan, ‘although we do have this great little work by Marina Abramovich in out kitchen that reads: “Artists should avoid falling in love with other artists”. Obviously it’s a bit too late for us now…’ 

As originally featured in the August 2012 issue of Wallpaper* (W*161)

INFORMATION

victoria-miro.com; doverstreetmarket.com

Team work: The show – entitled ‘Orlando’ – was the first in a three act project by the brand. First is the S/S 2020 menswear show, staged in three parts, each bathed in its own pool of coloured light, directed by staging designer Thierry Dreyfus, accompanied by live drum music selected by Vincent Glanzmann. The show concluded with an array of black, form fitting tailoring-cum-dresses; the models wore knotted frill sleeve shirts. Act two will be the womenswear show in September and the third and final stage is a forthcoming collaboration with Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth, who is premiering a production of Orlando at the Vienna State Opera in December this year.

Mood board: Identity and gaiety were bound up in Kawakubo’s S/S 2020 collection, taking inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s gender-defying novel. Much like the book, the clothes explored transformation and liberation through time. Suiting had draping and scalloped edges. Elizabethan frock coats merged into archetypal men’s suiting. Bell sleeves jutted from tailored coats. Tapestries, lace and quilting deconstructed perceptions of sex. The frivolity of historical dress burst through; pink satin exploded from the middle of tailored jackets in floral jacquard. Multiple collars were layered and froth forward.

Finishing touches: The brand’s footwear collaborations are much coveted. For the coming season, the brand has worked again with British boot company George Cox, originators of the iconic creeper, who produced a red and violet version of the suede lace-up, crepe sole Popboy style. Nike’s Air Max 95 has been re-shaped too – it is the first time a company has been permitted to change its silhouette. ‘Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us,’ Woolf once wrote. How true.

Mood board: Our world is over saturated with digital colour. Screens blinking. Images flitting constantly before our eyes. There’s an appeal to darkness. It represents a pause, a new beginning, a blanket thrown over a whirl of contemporary colour and information. Since Rei Kawakubo began designing in the early 1980s, her work has placed focus on the power of black. ‘Many small shadows come together to make one powerful thing,’ she explained in one elusive sentence in her A/W 2019 show notes. Her models appeared like a gang of goths on stage, walking in hyperbolic, structural creations – armour-like leather waders, oversized witchy bonnets and fish net sweaters. Shapes were cocooning, densely ruched and protective.

Finishing touches: Kawakubo also drew from goth and grunge at her Comme des Garçons menswear show last month, when her male models wore encrusted metal tabards, fishnet vests and heavy eyeliner. At the climax of her women’s show, Kawakubo’s models united into a coven-like circle at the centre of the stage, standing together with joined hands and looking up to the illuminated ceiling. It was a powerful, unifying image. A new stability formed from darkness.

Best in show: There was a subversive element behind a pretty knee-length silk dress embellished with ruffled fronds. Leather jackets with rounded, armour-resembling shoulders were infinitely wearable.

The gritty, industrial and transitional Los Angeles Arts District has become the home for the first West Coast Dover Street Market and the 6th outpost by the brand. The collective community of avant-garde designers and artists that make up each unique space from London to Singapore, include the pillar conceptual, anti-establishment fashion brand Comme des Garçons conceived by creative director Rei Kawakubo, who runs the company with her husband and president, Adrian Joffe.

The entire Dover Street Market Los Angeles interior – spanning 19,500 sq ft – has been designed by Kawakubo including all Comme des Garçons brand spaces, common areas, and architectural features, which is engulfed in an all-white tile wraparound façade, spanning across two ground-level buildings. A duo of trans-lateral huts pierces the dividing wall between the two structures, comprised of corrugated scrap metal sheets with different textures. For the LA design, Kawakubo was inspired by the sunshine and natural elements and didn’t want the space to be too colourful, but let the contents and light take centre stage. 

With artworks and installations incorporated into cutting-edge fashion, Joffe is most interested in the synergistic energy that you get from a diverse grouping all in the same space and, as with all Dover Street Markets, the reigning theme is ‘beautiful chaos'. ‘The DNA has to be the same across the brand,' and according to Joffe, ‘we like mixing things up and giving the chance for accidents to happen. Streetwear brands next to luxury brands and what type of feeling that creates. It’s a community of like-minded people who have vision and something to say.'

The collections are conceived with the surrounding environments in mind. The front entrance is filled with jewellery cases and a Cindy Sherman photograph of a women wearing pearls that is seemingly watching over the bounty by a mix of Japanese, Brazilian, European and American jewellers. Local Sophie Buhai’s minimalist pieces in silver and gold are alongside charms by Annoushka x The Vampire’s Wife, and Ana Khouri, who has given her newest Paris designs in 18-ct fairtrade gold exclusively to the LA store. Across the room, you can peruse Gucci’s watch collaboration with LA artist Wes Lang and Jonas Wood’s piece for Bamford.
     
‘California has always been a birthplace of new ideas,' says Joffe. Like the previous DSM outposts, every six months the doors close for several days for switching out the products and reinstallation. Just like the evolving breads and cakes, at the signature DSM Rose Bakery, the rebirth gives customers a sense of discovery when they come back. 

There are no windows facing the street but there are two event spaces near the front and back entrances, where artists will be regularly commissioned to create in-store installations. For the opening, the front rotating space includes a pocket shelf shop surrounded by black and white plexiglass dotted displays and graphics by artist Jordan Wolfson, next to Pat McGrath x The MET flanked with gold chains and makeup, and Eli Russell Linnetz who has done both a CDG campaign for Andy Warhol perfume and a collaboration with Nike.

There are many additional ‘firsts’ for this location including Chanel fine jewelry and the debut Los Angeles retail spaces for Nikelab, Noah from New York and cult streetwear brand Palace.

DSM favourites also return, including Brain Dead who creates live fashion with spell-your-own message letters on Velcro T-shirts, plus the 18th collection of tulle dresses with leather and faux fur from Noir Kei Ninomiya (who studied under Rei Kawakubo).

UK milliner Stephen Jones feels there has always been a big clientele here for the brand and his signature dramatic black hats are displayed on a pile of tiny white wooden chairs, ‘It’s like two worlds colliding. DSM is like home for me in any city and LA is like my second home.'

IDEA Books co-founder David Owen is also excited about being in Los Angeles. ‘We already have a big online customer base but it makes a big difference to have something physical in the city.'

London-based Charles Jeffrey presented five very colourful, furry ghoul-like sculptures which are also showcased at DSMNY as a part of Frieze Art Fair. ‘The LA fashion scene has a very underground aesthetic still, which seems to contradict how connected people are these days. The vastness of LA feels slightly odd, but I'm fascinated. I can’t wait to see Avi Gold’s work in person, those t-shirts look wicked.'

Toronto-based Avi Gold's kiosk is a micro version of his store, one that is already creating a buzz for its cheeky depictions on t-shirts of the characters from Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. ‘I wanted to give myself and my friends, who are all basically artists, a platform to showcase what we do and make things fun and exciting again and bring something new to the table.'

In keeping with that theme, DSMLA has also worked with six international artists on a series of chandeliers that are dotted throughout the space. Warren Muller, Björn Dahlem, Yuichi Higashionna, have existing pieces on display while Lyn Dillin, Gary Card and Stuart Haygarth have made bespoke pieces for the project. Several of the chandeliers encapsulate an underlying theme of the current environmental impact on our oceans and recycling found objects.

The front entrance bears a bold black monochromatic chandelier by Haygarth who was sourced black plastic beach objects found on the UK coastline over a six-month period, giving them new life along with a human connection. ‘These spaces make the shopping experience unique and exciting, almost akin to strolling through an inspirational art gallery,' he says. ‘My work creates harmony from chaos, bringing together families of objects and producing order. In this case, the mass of black objects forms together to create a sinister floating UFO, highlighting the dark nature of plastic waste found in the oceans of the world.'

Sonoma-based artist Lyn Dillin’s ethereal Chjellydelier, ‘used trash and waste and things nobody thinks are important – what I call road kill – smashed spectacles, broken tools, squashed cans, cracked compasses, animal bones, salt-hardened seaweed, and combined them with poems I wrote and printed on transparent plastic and stuffed into glass bottles and test tubes.' Dillin was also inspired by Kawakubo’s fierce adherence to her own vision. ‘It was encouraging to create with no interference or guidance. I was free to follow my heart to build something that was meaningful, beautiful and strange.'

The diverse chandeliers dangle over a varied mix of camo bomber jackets, Adidas blazers, checked overcoats from Raf Simons and opera length PVC gloves. Nearby, a staggering variety of sneakers are displayed on a shiny gold center island a few racks away from hot pink backpacks and red patent leather dresses. The designers run the gamut from Creatures of The Wind, The Row, Balenciaga, Junya Watanabe, Kiko Kostadinov, Prada, Noon Goons and Rick Owens. For more casual unisex wear, t-shirt brands include Dreamland, Expert Horror and Fucking Awesome, among dozens of others.  

‘The customer is getting more and more individual and understanding what we are trying to say,' says Joffe. ‘At first people didn’t understand who we were appealing to. It was a struggle. Now there is a better understanding 14 years later of what we are doing.'

‘It’s all about that connection and we always like to connect with the local community in the best way that we can. In LA it seemed even more important. California has a real community feeling,' says Joffe.

As for the future of the brand, one day Joffe would like to open in Paris where he has lived for decades. ‘And, there we stop,' he says. ‘We are not going to take over the world.'

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Dover Street Market Los Angeles website

ADDRESS

606-608 Imperial Street
Los Angeles
CA 90021

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Mood board: Fashion has the power to make us escape reality, to forget the present with a fantasy. It also confronts contemporary truths. It’s rare that Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo offers explicit explanation behind her collections, but her explorations of shape and structure have drawn parallels with questions regarding female identity and gender. Her famed S/S 1997 ‘Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body’ collection – a presentation of girlish gingham silhouettes, distorted with padded lumps and extrusions – has been interpreted as a commentary on body image expectation during the era of the Supermodel. Over thirty years on – in a pared-back, more intimate and less theatrical offering than recent seasons – the padded silhouettes on display for S/S 2019 had a searingly personal touch. Padded pregnant bellies protruding from capes and sparkling coats, through jagged fabric resembling a cracked egg or the zigzag of sharp teeth. Gauzy Comme des Garçons print dresses criss-crossed with chains. The brand’s signature tailoring, deconstructed, spliced and knotted to constrict the body.

Best in show: Those Comme des Garçons prints and idiosyncratically tailored silhouettes like capes and feathered double-breasted jackets, padded with pregnant bellies bore symbols of birth, reproduction and loss. Kawakubo, as the mother of her company, responsible for its reproduction, chained to its brand name. It was a touching portrayal of the brand founder’s creative struggles, particularly from a designer who is so famously private. The image of a woman with chains dangling from her sleeves, in a spliced men’s overcoat, also bore powerfully universal messages of women living in the era of #MeToo, and topically, through the devastating testimony against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford.

Finishing touches: Models walked slowly and purposely down the catwalk, exposing their padded bellies to the voyeuristic audience in Nike VaporMax trainers swathed in chain.

Comme des Garçons S/S 2019.

Puffers are entering a new era. The full lineup of 40 designs from the Moncler 6 Noir Kei Ninomiya collection, launches tomorrow exclusively at Dover Street Market. The line falls under the Moncler Genius umbrella; part of a series of eight collaborations with designers including Valentino's Pierpaolo Piccioli, Craig Green and Simone Rocha. Each collection will drop monthly, like an anticipated outerwear advent calendar.

Like its name, the project – which uses a drop model and celebrates a roster of esteemed brands – is in media strategy terms, genius. But, media strategy does not figure in Japanese designer Kei Ninomiya’s vocabulary: he rarely gives interviews, is underactive on Instagram, and doesn’t have a website… so who is this incognito designer who favours a monochromatic black colour palette? He studied fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, began his career as a patternmaker at Comme des Garçons and launched his namesake label Noir Kei Ninomiya with Comme des Garçons in 2012. His first show in Paris last March made major waves. And now here he is, collaborating with an Italian outerwear stalwart.

For Ninomiya, colouring the collection black, ‘as my brand’s name Noir Kei Ninomiya suggests,' was an obvious choice. ‘I am trying to push the boundaries, and limiting colour opens the door to infinite possibilities,' says the 34-year-old designer.

From the darkness, the snow white feathers of down padding were at his disposal. ‘As I had never crafted duvet before, it was a new experience,' adds Ninomiya, who set about studying the basic designs of Moncler in his research process. ‘Then I focused on experimenting with the volumes that duvet can give.'

The collection features 40 pieces, all coloured in Noir Kei Ninomiya's signature black

The process of finding those new volumes proved highly complex. Described as ‘wearable geometry', many of his garments are composed of multiplied modules, like a cell reproducing itself in crescendo. ‘Usually I conceive the smallest motif and put several pieces of them together. Then they develop into a certain shape gradually,' he says of the organic process behind his meticulous, puzzle-like creations.

Visually, his work recalls the mathematical op art of Victor Vasarely, who calculated diminution and enlargement of motifs analogically. Sound-wise the right reference could be the music by Michael Nyman or even JS Bach: a shower of evolving refrains composing a melody. ‘I’m shaping a kind of seamless garment by putting small cells together instead of sewing yokes.'

His obsession with ‘modules' is not only about the construction of the pieces: each of the designer’s collections is based on an assemblage of fragments. ‘Each piece is important and an indispensable member of the whole collection, it’s not possible for me to pick out one particular piece as a reference,' he explains. 'When I work on one garment, I think about the proportion of the whole look or the entire collection at the same time.'

The sculptural creations are made of shiny nylon, which for Ninomiya represents the most idiosyncratic material of the house. Leather and knitted yarn join the nylon. For certain pieces, duvet-stuffed tubes are braided as knitwear. The surface of the puffer jackets evoke flower fields or quilted French bedspreads. The pleated, gathered or quilted skirts — whether in nylon or leather — evoke giant bells. Innovative, enchanting, magical… in Moncler 6 Noir Kei Ninomiya, his unique technique takes on a new dimension.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Moncler website and Dover Street Market website

Mood board: The S/S 2019 season is jam-packed with firsts. Simon Porte Jacquemus will launch his men’s collection with a show in Marseille, Virgil Abloh presented his debut at Louis Vuitton and Kim Jones unveiled his vision for Maison Dior. Journalists who had seen a preview waxed lyrical about Jones’s hi-res haute, with floral patterns drawn from Dior’s personal porcelain, and feather embroideries by Maison Lemarié overlaid in vinyl to look like glazed china. The toile de jouy chosen for the original boutique at 30 Avenue Montaigne is resurrected as a new logo. Jones spent seven years at Louis Vuitton nurturing a smart, sports-lux approach, making sophisticated elegant clothes in the finest textiles. At Dior he has set the bar even higher, ramping up the richness, the mood and the metier.

Best in show: There’s a hunger for hardcore tailoring and bespoke detailing in the air. In episode one of Maison Margiela’s podcast: ‘The Memory of… With John Galliano’, the designer talks about a yearning for glamour ahead of his men’s Artisanal debut. Rei Kawakubo riffed on suits at Comme des Garçons; at Brioni, Nina-Maria Nitsche showed an exquisite double breasted jacket in vintage kimono fabrics that will be made to order. At last there is some resistance to the streetwear modus operandi. At Dior, a wrap-around jacket style pays homage to the silhouette of the brand’s A/W 1950 couture collection; shirts cowl at back to reveal the nape of the neck. The collection had a dialled down lightness and ease to balance the current mood for crisp, tailored perfection. Suiting was in light cashmere and summer mohair. Sheer pinstripe trousers were paired with repeat logo lace vests and monogram high-top sneakers.

Team work: American artist KAWS reinterpreted the brand’s classic bee motif which flitted across the collection; the show set featured a giant KAWS BFF figure constructed by Eric Chauvin using some 70,000 roses. Yoon of Ambush designed the jewellery using the iconic CD logo, flowers and insects. Matthew Williams of cult brand 1017 ALYX 9SM created a new metal buckle for the house, while longstanding Dior collaborator Stephen Jones crafted millinery based on original menswear styles in the archives.

Mood board: Our lives are shaped by people wearing jeans and sneakers in coffee shops in Silicone Valley. They aren’t decked out in suits and ties in giant city boardrooms; the dress codes of menswear have changed to reflect a looser, more liberal multiplicity ushered in by the digital age. In their heyday, tailored suits endured as icons of style and greed, perhaps best exemplified in the 1980 film 'American Gigolo'. Julian played by Richard Gere is devilishly suited and driven by money. The immaculate protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 book 'American Psycho' is high on power as an investment banker during the Wall Street boom. Both characters have a seedy sprezzatura. Politicians, bankers – to a generation, suits are now a symbol of what is wrong with the world. Leave it to Rei Kawakubo to choose this moment to re-introduce suiting. She is a designer who lets the clothes speak. The theme for her S/S 2019 show was simply ‘crazy suits’. And boy did she deliver on those.

Best in show: Models wore rubber wigs set in the manner of classic 1950s gentleman’s hair styles; suits were brash and wild. Opening looks included a two piece shorts suit. Small strips of silk in tonal shades of green had been cut with pinked edges and applied like a frothy camouflage. Polyester mix double breasted jackets and trousers were harshly ruched. Madras check and multicolour striped versions looked like glitched photocopies. A lilac suit had gaffa tape applied under the arm; a warm pink three button jacket had sides cut away and replaced with ruched elastic straps. Athletic zip up hoodies and fluro aertex t-shirts were shrunken and pulled tight over the top of blazers.

Finishing touches: Behind the footwear for S/S 2019 were two carry over collaborations. A deconstructed space-age boot made with Swedish brand Spalwart lent the surreal suiting a futuristic bravado. The non-lacing cages on Nike’s Presto model had the uppers cut away to form a hybrid sandal trainer. 

Scene setting: There was a theatrical edge to the show space of Comme des Garçons’ A/W 2018 show, held at the Pavillon Cambon-Capucines. As guests entered the venue they were greeted with a long velvet curtain with a long catwalk at its centre. Three huge spotlights hung over the runway, and as the show began they slowly lifted to make way for a collection rich in camp and Fellini-esque extravagance and baroque, presented to a classical soundtrack suffused in cabaret, carnival and funfair flare, including the theme from Le Strada, and Laurent Petigrand’s Circus Music.

Mood board: Rei Kawakubo was inspired by Susan Sontag’s celebratory 1964 essay ‘Notes on Camp’ which lists ‘Bellini’s operas’, ‘Swan Lake’, and 'women’s clothes of the twenties (feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses, etc.)' as part of its aesthetic cannon. For A/W 2018, the padded proportions and sculptural shapes idiosyncratic of Kawakubo’s designs were formed from a mille-feulle of pretty layers. A ruffled skirt made from piles of sugary nightdresses, ruffles of red fabrics resembling a flamenco costume, a cocooning dress dreamt up from piles of lace and wadding, like a mobile meringue or a wedding cake. The collection’s seventeen looks were worn by models who moved serenely down the catwalk. One model’s was head was entirely enclosed by a fabric flower, another walked sporting layers of fuschia net and a padded sequinned dress attached to her body. It was a collection of hyperbolic theatrical flair.

Finishing touches: Kawakubo’s padded designs have in the past been interpreted as grotesque takes on the societal pressures imposed on women's figures. Take Comme des Garçons’ seminal ‘Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body’ S/S 1997 collection which featured typically feminine fabrics like gingham distorted with lumps of padding. There was a more joyful and wonderfully theatrical energy in the brand’s A/W 2018 offering, with looks paired with glittering and bobbing wigs created by Julien d’Ys, and platform Nike Cortez trainers. 

Mood board: Read into it what you will, but the show notes for Rei Kawakubo’s A/W 2018 collection were titled ‘WHITE SHOCK: Inner Rebel’. The show opened with models wearing large dinosaur skulls rendered in fabric by the Japanese illustrator and artist Shimoda Masakatsu. The clothes featured patchwork superhero comic strips, aerial photographs of an anonymous city, photographic prints of crazy paving, pebbles and manhole covers – an eclectic mien with a textured narrative. White asymmetric front jackets were made from fabric of embossed tiled grid. Shearling cut into wide shorts and cocooning trenchcoats. Collars on shirts twisted to the right. Graphic architectural drawings of interiors were layered and printed onto blazers.

Scene setting: Kawakubo’s approach is always esoteric. Her last A/W show was staged in the grand, opulent ballroom at the Westin hotel, yet we entered the space from a narrow service entrance at the back of the building. This season the show was held inside the Théâtre du Châtelet – an opera house, located in the 1e arrondissement of Paris, which first opened in 1862. In December last year the Heritage Foundation in partnership with the City of Paris, launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay for its renovation, which is under the direction of the architect Philippe Pumain. The show was set on the stage – a plywood ceiling had been lowered above and the lighting set low. Models walked to and from the edge where a tower of metal scaffolding stood, scaling the entire atrium. It represented a transformative, transfigurative mood.

Team work: All of the three styles of shoe that featured have been made in collaboration: off white trainers with Nike; two-buckle, crepe sole creepers with George Cox; an architectural rubber, closed-toe lace-up created by the Brazilian brand Melissa. Kawakubo’s S/S18 women’s show featured customised shoes by the brand and this is the first time that Melissa has developed an exclusive men’s style. ‘The surprising thing is that it's a product with no sole, and no top, as if it were a single thing.’ Edson Matsuo, Melissa’s creative director said. ‘It's a single block, which is exactly what you'd expect from Comme des Garçons.’

Upon arriving at the Paris gallery, A1043, it becomes clear in an instant that the chairs running the length of the space seem less than hospitable. One seat consists of fence-like wire; another offers a triangular seat with two chains slung as meagre back support. The most extreme of the lot boasts a coiled steel base and upright rod, which give the impression of a Bauhaus prototype gone awry. But the fact that they appear so unwelcoming contributes to the intrigue stirred up by knowing who designed them: none other than Rei Kawakubo, the elusive visionary behind Comme des Garçons.

Gallery owners Didier Jean Anicet Courbot and partner Stéphanie Laurent Courbot have spent the better part of three years collecting furniture that Kawakubo designed between 1983-93. When the couple, who opened their space in 2016, began developing an interest in this niche category from the cult fashion brand, they soon realised how obscure the creations had become. Only after amassing 15 original pieces from across Europe, the US and Japan did they feel ready to mount a show, which furthers their mandate of pursuing a conceptual approach to contemporary design.

‘This is furniture that was designed around the idea of transit,’ said Didier Courbot during a walkthrough. ‘[Kawakubo] thought of it as temporary furniture and I love that idea – that you might sit, but only for five minutes. There’s this idea of movement.’ Accordingly, they envisaged an ultra-minimalist staging with neon tubes installed vertically at various intervals to create a dynamic atmosphere, as though speeding through a highway tunnel.

Within the more spacious lower level can be found the rarest piece among the grouping: a sinuous three-part screen in Japanese linden, its central partition over-paneled in aluminium. There’s also Kawakubo’s striking interpretation of a Louis XV-style armchair that is faithful to the ornamented French frame, only reconstructed in Japan and left unvarnished with plated brass panels along the seat. Compared to the other pieces, it veers towards baroque.

The final space features a table with a double-stacked top, plus two sets of chairs with vented backs, all created in 1987. The table, in particular, reveals its previous life, most likely as a work desk; if anything, it signals that the furniture was used, not simply conceived as objets d’art.

Indeed, Didier notes that just as Kawakubo has historically rejected the label of fashion designer, she would similarly eschew any notion that this series, numbered chronologically, represents art. Yet for enthusiasts, their limited function and contemplative forms easily qualify as such. ‘She’s someone who refuses to see herself as an artist; but in reality, she’s an artist,’ he said.

As store fixtures that were available for purchase, the numbered models – approximately 40 in total – would have supported her aesthetic, whether or not they were intended for wider distribution. Didier suggests they were ‘a total commercial failure’ on account of being ‘too ahead of their time.’

Or else, the lack of comfort proved the deal-breaker. ‘It’s not made to be comfortable, but it’s also not a sculpture,’ explained Stéphanie. ‘It doesn’t have a classic definition; it’s outside the codes.’ Which is what will likely appeal to collectors some 25 years later. As Didier, himself an artist, pointed out, ‘what's interesting is that design can often evolve from people who do not work in design.’

And he’s sure enough of the collection’s resonance today that beyond this show, he imagines re-editing the pieces so that more people can ultimately enjoy them – seated or not.

INFORMATION
‘The Furniture of Rei Kawakubo’ is on view until 22 December. For more information, visit the A1043 website

ADDRESS

A1043
47 rue de Montmorency
75003 Paris

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Scene setting: It's not every day that one can enter the Russian Embassy as casually as we did today. It seemed a strange choice of venue for the Comme des Garçons show, almost one charged with meaning, although what Rei Kawakubo prescribed meaning we do not know. Be as it may, merely seeing the building is fascinating: a strange mixture between Soviet aesthetic and post-soviet bling, it holds the expected cyclopean proportions, the gilded details and the most unusual carpeting in corporate USSR red. The small pristine white salon in which the show was to take place had an accumulation of abstract crystal lamps which hung from the ceiling. 

Moodboard: The setting might have been totalitarian, but the collection couldn't be further away from those aesthetics. Which was obvious from the very first look, all red vinyl and pastel-coloured plastic toys, imagined as 3D graffiti, stuck to the model's hair. It was best described by the Japanese term: kawaii- a term for cuteness within Japanese culture. Overblown volumes, seemingly infinite superpositions and padded proportions were everywhere, sometimes in silver jacquard mixing traditional Japanese sea motifs and pop culture. Other times, it was a mix of virginal white poplin and non-virginal latex. But two looks stood out overall, both of them featuring an overblown multicolour anime print (works by 12 artists were featured in the collection, from a variety of countries and times), with the face of a Sailor Moon-esque character fully featured in the front of both dresses. It felt experimental, but it also felt like a commercial version of those dresses would sell out in a wink.

Finshing touches: Hair and make up are always a big part of every Comme Des Garçons show. This time, models - mostly redheads - wore their manes extra frizzy and just as overblown as their clothes. Some of them looked like oversized versions of eightied afro haircuts, but some of them were in total disarray, including Japanese toys in all sorts of kawaii shades of plastic. The last look - an impressive red vinyl ruffled dress - was even paired with a necklace made out of those same toys, making us as excited about it as if we were kids in a toy store. And, of course, we have to mention the kitten-heeled trainers, an unexpected collaboration of the brand with Nike. Then again, at Comme des Garçons we've learned to always expect the unexpected.

Once an experience only available to residents and visitors to London, Dover Street Market has managed to recreate its retail magic in Tokyo, New York, Beijing and, as of this week, Singapore too. Located within an ex-army barracks on Dempsey Hill, the brand’s inaugural southeast Asian presence is also its first single-floor undertaking, bringing a renewed elan to its iconic market concept.

From the outside, Dover Street Market Singapore’s white colonial building cuts an austere figure. A triple tiered roof tops the sprawling 12,325 sq ft space, culminating a ceiling that goes well over 10m at its highest point. Once inside, the Singapore outpost provides visitors with a similar sense of discovery that underscores each of its counterparts.

Dover Street Market Singapore is housed in a single-storey colonial building

Comprising a cacophony of textures, materials and installations, the Singapore boutique has been carved into a series of individualised spaces that denote each brand. At its core stands the DSM hut, a giant structure made up of a pastiche of painted plywood and corrugated zinc, that’s flanked by jewellery on one side, and The Row’s space, which features a Jacques-Henri Lartigue table and Andrée Putman shelving, on the other. Behind this, colourful arches appear to pierce through the white ceiling, while existing rows of black beams have been added to, giving the space a graphic, avant-garde feel.

The boutique’s daring energy continues with a pair of glass and steel structures, housing all of Comme des Garçons collections, a polka-dotted space filled with its Pocket range and a wire fence labyrinth filled with exuberant womenswear offerings from designers such as Jacquemus, JW Anderson, Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard. Menswear, including pieces from Raf Simons, Vetements and Gosha Rubchinskiy, are housed in eight freestanding metal towers, that lure visitors to weave in and around in order to savour the products.

As with all its other outposts, Rei Kawakubo has designed all of the general Dover Street Market and Comme des Garçons areas. The design of the other spaces dedicated to brands like Gucci, Céline, The Row, Thom Browne, Undercover, Sacai, Balenciaga and NikeLabDSM SGP have been left up to themselves. Topped off with a lighting installation designed by Thierry Dreyfus and an original soundscape by Calx Vive, the Singapore boutique’s artistically charged mix is as true to Kawakubo’s original vision as it could be.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the DSM Singapore website

ADDRESS

DSM Singapore
18 Dempsey Road
Singapore 249677

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No stranger to boundary pushing, Comme des Garçons has launched an olfactory creation centred on a material close to our heart: concrete.

Rather than focus on its cold, austere and brutalist qualities, Comme des Garçons’ vision of a concrete fragrance is unexpectedly rooted in the soft sensuality of sandalwood. Blended with cedarwood, balsam and musk, and a mélange of spices such as cumin, cardamom, ginger and pepper, this avant-garde riff on sandalwood is a deftly executed disruption of the brand’s own perfume legacy.

Comme des Garçons Parfums creative director Christian Astuguevieille explains, ‘Concrete is really part of the DNA of Comme des Garçons. I was very interested in the contrast between the rawness of concrete and something as refined and luxurious as sandalwood. They are very different, but harmonious as the same time.’

Created by perfumer Nicolas Beaulieu, Comme des Garçons Concrete opens with a rich and opulent burst of sandalwood that is interrupted by the presence of a metallic accord, an artificial rose oxide. ‘I knew from the beginning that I needed something disruptive, but to do that in a manner that’s wearable, surprising but fitting the concept is a bit more difficult,’ he says. ‘[Rose oxide] is a molecule that you find naturally in rose oil, but it’s not floral at all. It’s very metallic, green and sharp, and so for Concrete, I really overused it to create this disruption.’

Rich, woody and yet a little unsettling, the enticing perfume is bottled in a concrete version of Comme des Garçons Parfums’ signature flacon. Each glass bottle is dipped in concrete by hand and exudes a porous, natural quality – quite the contrary of what the material is typically known for. The collision of all the juxtapositions; between the bottle and its material, the concept and the actual fragrance, represents Comme des Garçons’ spirit to a tee.

Beaulieu sums it up perfectly, ‘To me there’s always something surprising or almost disturbing in CDG fragrances, that’s what I find interesting. There’s something catchy, which you’re not sure whether you like or don’t like at first, but you always come back to it.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Commes des Garçon website

‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’ at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, is nothing shy of monumental. Spanning nearly 3,000 sq m of prime space, it first unfolds as a rich, thematic journey throughout the two floors of permanent fashion galleries. Then, as though the second of two acts, visitors proceed towards the museum’s vast nave where the story begins anew, starting with the iconic bar suit from spring 1947, continuing as a chronological focus on the maison’s six designers, and ending with a magically staged ball attended by seven decades of show-stopping gowns.

Not since 1987 has there been a Christian Dior retrospective in Paris. Thirty years later, to mark the maison’s 70th anniversary, this one ranks as the largest yet. Curated by the museum’s director Olivier Gabet, and Florence Müller, who is based at the Denver Art Museum as the Avenir Foundation curator of textile art and fashion, it features upwards of 300 haute couture gowns, many from the museum’s own collection. But arguably even more staggering are all the peripheral objects: the loaned artworks from major institutions, a vast trove of archive materials from the brand’s Dior Heritage department, 700 accessories sorted as a meandering rainbow wall (dubbed ‘Colorama’), plus scores of magazine covers and editorial spreads that testify to how widely and consistently the Dior image has been diffused (Maison Christian Dior was involved in the show beyond financial support).

Rather than forcing one point of view above others, what becomes clear is that the designer’s original vision has been so incredibly respected, preserved and mythologised since his death just ten years after founding his label. Visitors need only glance at the three-storey wall filled silhouettes conceived by all the subsequent creative directors in addition to Dries Van Noten, Alber Elbaz, Comme des Garçons, Alexander McQueen, Pierre Cardin, Yohji Yamamoto and others to sense that his influence and artistic spirit has been kept alive.

Within the exhibition’s biographical gallery, just down from a striking portrait of the designer by artist Bernard Buffet, he appears on a Time magazine cover dated March 4,1957 holding a giant pair of scissors. In his book, Christian Dior and I, he referred to ‘a small bloodless revolution – made by the scissors rather than the sword – whose reverberations extend to all corners of the world.’ Now consider last year’s must-have ‘Dio(r)evolution’ t-shirt, which Müller happened to be wearing four days before the opening when she and Gabet met for our interview.

’His intention was not to be a revolutionary; he was seeing himself more as a reactionary. It was a reaction against the fashion of the war,’ she explained. ‘It was a reaction that became a revolution. But it was not his intention; I think he was more subtle than this.’

Is the show subtle? Not to the extent that the exceptional scenography, overseen by Nathalie Crinière, presents a steady stream of visually stimulating backdrops, from the illuminated outlines of the 30 Avenue Montaigne façade projected onto the museum walls (don’t miss the upper oval medallion with its highlight reel of runway shows), to the thousands of white flowers suspended from the ceiling in the room exploring the maison’s myriad floral-inspired dresses.

The ambiance in the nave becomes something of a dreamscape thanks to projections of the baroque paintings from the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles, a simulated starry sky, and sparkling gold dust (Jean Cocteau famously noted how Mr Dior’s name was a near homophone with d’or, or gold). Here, in the presence of his glistening Junon and Venus gowns – along with at least two dozen others from Yves Saint Laurent through to Maria Grazia Chiuri – such overwhelming beauty successfully perpetuates the fashion fairytale.

But then to hear Gabet describe the selection process for the roughly 100 works of art placed throughout the exhibition is to also detect connections, surprises, and yes, subtleties that give the show added subtance. For while the paintings by Sterling Ruby and Agnes Martin adjacent to dresses by Raf Simons are obvious complements given his affinity for both artists; a torso of Nefertiti from the Louvre’s Egyptian department was only later discovered to exist as a photo in Galliano’s notebook. ‘It’s always when you are respectful to the artwork in the context of fashion that these beautiful and poetic things happen,’ Gabet suggested. ‘The point was not to be automatic but to always find the right and legitimate way.’

Mr Dior, after all, was a gallerist and art dealer before he became a designer; he revolved in creative circles with the likes of Salvador Dalí and Christian Bérard and mounted a surrealist show with his partner, Pierre Colle, in 1923. Chances are, he would have derived pleasure from seeing the modern maiden painted by Romaine Brooks in 1912, and a Fantin-Latour still life as juxtapositions to the floral dresses. Like other intimate vignettes in the show, it felt immune from any imposition of Dior, the mega-brand.

And it would be easy to declare the Colorama fixture the most apparent aspect of this with all the shoes, bags, hats, jewellery and perfume bottles. But Gabet sees it another way, rightfully pointing out how many of the objects represent collaborations with Stephen Jones, Roger Vivier, Swarovski (which developed the Aurora Borealis crystal for Mr Dior in 1956). ‘We are showing all the possibilities of the métiers d’art and craftsmanship technical virtuosity of the house of Dior.’

Incidentally, the exhibition includes an alcove where actual artisans will be stationed on a weekly basis to show off the savoir-faire before visitors’ eyes. That the show has debuted two days after Chiuri’s autumn/winter collection on Monday, is proof that the Dior story, for the first time filtered through a feminine voice, continues to play out beyond the museum walls in real time.

Gabet and Müller both pointed out that with this level of couture, the dresses didn’t simply slip onto the mannequins; they go through a meticulous process called mannequinage. ‘It’s a little industry by itself for the scale this show,’ said Gabet. Müller summed it up best: ‘You have to remember, he’s like a monument,’ she said. ‘You’ve entered into a legend.’

INFORMATION

‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’ is on view until 7 January 2018. For more information, visit the Les Arts Décoratifs website

ADDRESS

Les Arts Décoratifs
107 rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris

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This summer, the work of Rei Kawakubo, founder and creative director of Comme des Garçons, is the subject of an exhibition at the Costume Institute of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Both Kawakubo and the curator in charge, Andrew Bolton, insist the show is not a retrospective – though that would certainly be Kawakubo’s due.

The last exhibition at The Met dedicated to a living fashion designer was in 1983, when Diana Vreeland, former editor-in-chief of US Vogue, staged a show exploring the work of Yves Saint Laurent, believed then and now to be one of the 20th century’s greatest. Two years earlier, in 1981, Kawakubo made her debut at Paris Fashion Week, presenting collections that radically reconsidered conventions of dressing, dressmaking and fashion as a whole. They were revered by few, reviled by many. Today, they seem uncannily prescient: a new way of looking at fashion, of embedding concepts, of cutting garments flat rather than tailoring them to the body. These clothes had a different form, a different look and a different intent.

Now 74 and still creating, Kawakubo is possibly the most important fashion designer of our age. One of the most radical things about her work is the fact that, in her eyes, much of her recent output hasn’t been fashion at all. Her past eight collections, starting with S/S 2014, have been described by the designer herself as ‘not clothes’. The S/S14 show was labelled ‘objects for the body’, which sounds like a synonym for clothes but is apt to describe pieces that more readily resemble soft sculpture than, say, a cocktail dress. Rather than surrendering to a visual effect, they seem to express an interest in space, in dimensionality.

A Comme des Garçons dress is frequently so multi-layered and complex, so structurally intricate, that it is more than merely 3D in a world of 2D fashion. Perhaps the fourth dimension to these pieces is an inner one – an exploration of soft engineering. How is the waist held? Where does your arm go? How does it feel? You have to be inside these ‘not clothes’  to truly understand the architecture of the spaces Kawakubo has designed. Her latest design, however, is on a vast scale.

The extraordinary exhibition space of the Costume Institute show has been devised by Kawakubo – a concept presented, complete, to Bolton eight months ago, after her S/S17 womenswear show in Paris. The exhibition design doesn’t look like a giant dress, but it kind of is. ‘It is the same, intricately connected,’ says Kawakubo via email (she hates interviews and seldom conducts them, even more rarely in person). ‘The same aims deriving from the same sense of values – that is creation. In other words, always something new. I didn’t want it to look like a museum exhibition.’

It doesn’t. The expanse of The Met Fifth Avenue’s Iris and B Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall has been carved into niches, nooks and crannies, with walls deliberately thrown up to split the space apart. The overall effect is both cosy and confused, intimate and intricate. ‘It is a massive white space of structures and sculptures, which lead the public on a voyage of discovery,’ says Kawakubo. 

There is undoubtedly a sense of journeying through her labyrinthine design: the sections overlap and intermingle, with straight lines and curves jostling one another in seeming disorder. This collection of structures resembles a dystopian cityscape. Inside the different spaces, visitors will encounter around 150 examples of Kawakubo’s work produced over the past 40 years.

Her recent ‘not clothes’ are strongly represented. According to Bolton, Kawakubo originally wanted the exhibition to present pieces only from those eight collections, and he had to fight to include earlier examples. The exhibition design itself sits easily alongside Kawakubo’s recent work, as another piece of non-clothing for people to inhabit. ‘It’s an environment,’ the designer says. ‘It is intricately linked. It is not a backdrop.’ (She replied entirely in block capitals to my emailed questions; the emphasis is mine.)

‘I feel as if that spatial awareness of the body, and that spatial awareness of the body within space, is incredibly important,’ says Bolton. He’s speaking on  the phone from New York in the final days of the exhibition installation. ‘Even the early work emphasises the void between the body and the dress. She developed that void by lowering the boundary where the body starts and the clothing begins.’ Boundaries don’t interest Kawakubo. 

When asked if she was conscious of rules about the display of clothes in museum exhibitions – sight lines, glass, the conventions of labelling – her answer was brief: ‘I never adhere to any rules.’ The space itself, Bolton explains, is entirely free of exhibition markings or descriptions. There is a booklet to guide viewers, should they so wish, but otherwise their voyage is without overt navigation.

‘It’s a completely white space, with the clothes,’ Bolton says. ‘You have the option to walk in and experience without interpretation.’ The lighting, devised by Thierry Dreyfus, who also produces and designs the lighting for Comme des Garçons’ Paris fashion shows, was deliberately intended to eradicate shadows and give the impression of… nothingness.

The Japanese word mu can mean emptiness, without, or merely nothing. It’s an important concept for Kawakubo. Her reluctance to be interviewed reflects a reticence to over-explain her work. Backstage after her fashion shows, rather than the sermons offered by other designers, Kawakubo summarises her collections with neat elliptical phrases, or even single words: blood and roses, the future of silhouette, crush. Speaking to The Independent in 1995, she stated: ‘The meaning is that there is no meaning.’ 

The designer resists Bolton’s interpretations – or, at least, declares them to be his and not hers. ‘I was reminded of Susan Sontag’s essay “Against Interpretation”,’ says Bolton. ‘Sontag basically says that intellect is the critic’s revenge on art, that the critic can’t do art so they talk about it instead. The idea of subjectivity as opposed to objectivity, emotion versus intellect.’ Kawakubo echoes that: ‘I don’t have reference points.’ She has approached the exhibition design in the same manner as her clothing. ‘Energy, stimulation, new beauty’ are the words she uses to express what she wants viewers to feel when exploring the space.

That space is, of course, her space. Having a living fashion designer – or artist, or anyone – directly involved in the curation and display of their work is generally problematic. A curator will have one perspective, a designer another. In this instance, the exhibition design was devised by Kawakubo in collaboration with Bolton and constructed by the Met. There is no outside interference – the vision is pure. ‘She was very adamant, and I was very adamant, that it would be just the museum and Rei,’ says Bolton. ‘There’s such a profound connection between our clothes and the environments in which they’re shown. I actually encourage that collaborative effort.’

The collaboration here, though, was something of a dance, with Kawakubo conceiving the architecture, Bolton curating the designs, and those elements being brought together in a space envisaged as a distinct creative endeavour. ‘Usually, how I work is that you have the curation and you work with a design concept that works around the curation. This is almost the opposite,’ says Bolton. Kawakubo, as always, avoids easy categorisation: ‘I like not to think of borders and definitions in my work.’ 

As originally featured in the June 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*219)

INFORMATION

‘Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between’ is on view until 4 September. The exhibition catalogue is now available, featuring photography of Kawakubo’s womenswear by the likes of Nicholas Alan Cope, Inez and Vinoodh, Craig McDean, Brigitte Niedermair and Paolo Roversi. A separate limited-edition exhibition album, with installation photography by Nicholas Alan Cope and commentary by Mark Wigley, is available at The Met Store from late May. For more information, visit The Met Fifth Avenue website

ADDRESS

The Met Fifth Avenue
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York NY 10028

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Scene setting: The Comme des Garçons exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is less than two months away; its founder Rei Kawakubo the second living designer alongside Yves Saint Laurent to be honoured in its yearly fashion exhibition. With head curator Andrew Bolton seated at Comme des Garçons' A/W 2017 runway show, the profound impact of Kawakubo's career was even more palpable than usual, as two models entered the catwalk, walking at a slow and weaving pace, encased in armless and curving igloo-like forms, and metallic silver wigs resembling wire wool.

Moodboard: Kawakubo presented a series of masterful sculptural creations, imagined in fabrics both resembling the grey matter found in tumble dryers or bulbous silvery space suits. One look was imagined as an armless and oversized patterned dress, the back open to reveal what looked like a cream tailoring mannequin beneath, while another neutral cocooning shape with distorted sections of padding evoked the revolutionary lumpy silhouettes in Kawakubo's seminal ‘Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body’ S/S 1997 collection.

Best in show: Like the other models who moved in a dreamlike fashion, Anna Cleveland appeared in a giant black and white creation, comprising layers of undulating petticoats. Tottering onto the runway, Cleveland's mille-feuille wobbled as she walked, and she made a final twirl at the head of the runway as the show ended.

'Blackpepper' – Comme des Garçon’s most recent fragrance, which makes a hero of an ingredient more commonly used in a supporting role – is being introduced with a striking installation by Faye Toogood at London’s Selfridges. The fragrance, which true to Comme form professes to be devoid of gender and age profiles, comes in a black version of the classic recumbent Comme bottle. It is worked around five principle ingredients: black pepper, tonka bean, leather, cedar wood and Akigalawood (derived from patchouli). The star note, Madagascan black pepper oil, persists through the dry down phase, thus enduring while the scent evolves on the skin.

While the innovative structure gives originality to the famously unorthodox Japanese fashion and fragrance house's latest olfactory offering, Toogood’s involvement raises the quirk factor, by translating its notes into physical structures. Each of these bubbly monoliths represents one of the five key notes. They are designed to serve as a backdrop to the fragrance in-store – the installation begins in Selfridges, and goes on the road later this year to Moscow.

While the notion of fragrance being linked synesthetically to painting, poetry and music is familiar, translating scent into physical shape is new to us. Given the space, a height restriction of 1.2m to fit the beauty hall’s sight line and a bottle of the fragrance, Toogood had free reign to create what she wanted. 'The fragrance itself was the starting point,’ says the one-time interior stylist and set designer, who has successfully switched to furniture and fashion design over the past ten years. 'I took a big ball of clay and moulded the shapes I saw.'

These have been translated into a landscape of forms that carry the same language as the designer’s 'Roly Poly' range of furniture, and are made from a foam core and a hard coating of industrial rubber that usually coats roofs. It's up to the individual to identify the specific translations, though some are easier to relate than others; the conjoined balls, for example are unmistakably black pepper.

Space to display three bottles has been worked into the structure, in stark contrast to usual scent installations. ‘They usually involve MDF shelving, lightboxes and multiple bottles... we had to do something different,' says Toogood. And different it is. 

INFORMATION

’Blackpepper’, £83 for 100ml, by Comme des Garçons, from Selfridges. For more information, visit the Selfridges website

Mood board: It is rare for the cerebral designer Rei Kawakubo to proffer a fixed point of reference for her work, yet this season she had the message boldly displayed across the clothes. Tabards and trousers were scrawled with the words: ‘The King is Naked’, a nod to Hans Christian Andersen’s short tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. It is a story about fashion after all. Transparency and pageantry were the message. A raft of tailoring was layered with fine gauze, longline cardigans underneath or PVC trench coats on top.

Best in show: A section of the show included short suits and shirts made in fabric printed with the face of operatic soprano Lina Cavalieri, taken from Piero Fornasetti’s iconic drawings. Fornasetti first became mesmerised with her oddly blank stare whilst flicking through a 19th-century magazine in the early fifties. He went on to reinterpret her more than 500 times. Today, his son Barnaba Fornasetti continues to design in his father’s name and the prints he worked on for Comme have translated Cavalieri into a vivid polka dot, with a swipe of crimson lipstick.

Finishing touches: Models wore high-top, black and white trainers with transparent PVC panels on the side. They are the result of a new collaboration between Garçon Homme Plus and Nike. Dover Street Market — the label’s buzzy chain of concept stores – has teamed up with the American sportswear giant before, but this marks the first sneaker collaboration for the Homme Plus label.

Hermès: Renown for its luxurious goods and eminent handbags, the famous maison's latest collection – proposed by Véronique Nichanian for the menswear line – were utterly stupefying in their expert finish and unequivocally French mood. Photography/Videography: Antonio Camera

Dior Homme: Set in the midst of a sprawling mass of rollercoaster tracks festooned with coloured lights, Kris van Assche's catwalk was said to be a direct replica of a ride that once stood at Sinksenfoor Antwerp, a traditional Belgian fairground. Photography/Videography: Antonio Camera

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus: Transparency and pageantry were the message of Rei Kawakubo's S/S 2017 collection. A raft of tailoring was layered with fine gauze, longline cardigans underneath or PVC trench coats on top, models milling about the raw concrete runway. Photography/Videography: Antonio Camera

Berluti: Instead of a traditional fashion show, Berluti chose a rather more active stage on which to showcase their new wears: a poolside party. A rather fitting touch, considering they debuted their new lifestyle collection. Alongside skipping ropes, dumbbells, beach rackets and a set of boules, the label’s signature hide was also hand-stitched around a football which models kicked around in a friendly match. Photography: Antonio Camera. Videography: Courtesy of Berluti

Like its clothing, a Comme des Garçons perfume bears a distinctive signature – quirky, irreverent and always retaining an element of surprise. Since launching its first fragrance in 1993, the avant-garde label has truly stretched its boundaries. To date, it has created 75 different scents that articulate a variety of themes, concepts, collaborations with artists, icons and more.

This week, Comme des Garçons Parfums brings a new fragrance to life – a olfactory personification of the legendary fashion stylist, Grace Coddington. Simply named 'Grace by Grace Coddington', the perfume is a heady bouquet of Moroccan rose, freesia and peach blossom, cut with hints of mint, basil and bergamot, that ends with notes of cashmere wood, white musk and amber. Enclosed in a playful feline flacon (Coddington's pet of choice), the fragrance is as loyal to its namesake as it could possibly be.

'We like to pursue different pistes as we say in French,' says CEO Adrian Joffe. 'We have the main perfume, which was the very first one and always a perfume for yourself to stimulate the senses. Then there was a series called the 'Anti-Perfumes', so [working with creative figures] was one more of those. And then it was really [the milliner] Stephen Jones who came to us and asked us to do his perfume. We had never done a perfume for somebody else, but we sat down and thought it would be nice to do one more piste. They would design it, we would make it, Christian [Astuguevieille] would conceive of the perfume. It was another idea.'

Like the company's fragrances for Jones, Daphne Guinness and now Coddington, Comme des Garçons' name is only mentioned as the maker of the scent, largely because each perfume in this series has always been instigated by the individual, rather than the other way round. 'I've never been after anybody, it's refusing people really,' laughs Joffe. 'We discuss and decide whether we really want to work with that person. Basically Christian has to want to and to feel it and he had a very good feeling with Grace right from the beginning. She knew exactly what she wanted.'

'Grace by Grace Coddington' is the tenth perfume in this personality-driven series. For Astuguevieille, a perfumer and the creative director of Comme des Garçons Parfums, the challenge lay in creating a rosy, floral scent that was light but also possessed that inimitable Comme des Garçons edge.

'The idea is to build something and then to break it – that's always the surprise. In this scent, what we created was the rose and to break it, there is mint and notes of basil. It became something more contemporary,' says Astuguevieille. 'Grace wanted a tiny rose – a rose at the beginning of its budding. One that's very personal and not for everybody. The process was quite easy because she really knew what she wanted.'

As the perfume was being finalised, Coddington also worked with Joffe and Fabien Baron to design the endearing bottle. While the juice was inspired by Coddington's love of English roses, the bottle reflects her love of cats. The stylist lives with two in New York – a ten-year old called Pumpkin and a one-year old named Blanket.

From start to finish, the fragrance is entirely of Coddington's conception and a sophisticated, playful reflection of her character. Even the box, which is a plain white on the outside, is printed a fiery orange on the inside – an unbridled and self-deprecating reference to her most distinguishing feature.

INFORMATION

’Grace by Grace Coddington’, $110 for 50ml and $145 for 100ml, is now available at Dover Street Market New York. It will be available in Europe and Asia from 20 May. For more details, please visit Dover Street Market’s website

ADDRESS

Dover Street Market New York
160 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10016

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Though there are more than 75 perfumes under the Comme des Garçons brand, their latest release, codenamed Dot, is only the fifth to have been developed and launched in-house rather than under licence to the Spanish perfume giant Puig. Dot is inspired by one of Rei Kawakubo’s favourite scents: the fragrance of Japanese osmanthus, a small evergreen tree whose small white flowers have a wonderful peach-like scent. 

It was created by Lucas Sieuzac, until recently the senior perfumer at the German flavour and fragrance company Symrise, who has used osmanthus absolute to recreate the smell of the flowers, with green notes and ambery woods to reference the leaves and bark of the tree, and touches of bitter orange, pepper and incense-like olibanum as well. 

Dot is a light, attractive, sweet and fruity scent, which comes in an intentionally shelf-unfriendly black glass bottle which neither stands nor sits, decorated with Kawakubo’s signature polka dots. 

INFORMATION

Comme des Garçons Dot, 100ml for $130 / £85 / €105, from Liberty London and Dover Street Market New York, London, Tokyo and Beijing. For more information, visit the website

Mood board: What was on Rei Kawakubo's inspiration this season was anyone's guess as what came down her runway seemed unconnected with anything already created. That's the beauty of a Comme show: you've got walking 3D sculptures made from pieces of deconstructed sports gear (knee braces, elbow pads etc), blown up silhouette forms that resemble human boats or at least children in their rubber ducky rafts and magical balloons of fabric that have been reinforced with hefty silver snaps.

Best in show: There was a new femininity in this show which allowed a softer palette of pastels and vibrant pinks to do battle – and win – against Kawakubo's preferred armor of all black. Best of all this season were the magnificent brocades and lush floral prints that gave a new exuberance to her remarkable creations.

Finishing touches: They could not be called hats but some of the women's garments covered the entire head so as to create walking human igloos made from magnificent tapestry fabrics. Also noteworthy? The fuzzy bunny pink lace-up tennis shoes, which gave a domestic twist to the wild art up above.

Watch Nick Knight’s new conceptual film for Floriental, Comme des Garçons’ new fragrance

Iconic fashion photographer Nick Knight has created a conceptual film for the Comme des Garçons’ 2015 fragrance Floriental, released to SHOWstudio, his video website, this week. Based on the concept of a flower that has no scent, the film and perfume both play with the idea of working out what else ‘floral’ could mean in a fragrance.

Knight, who has previously collaborated with designers such as John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, has this time partnered with Comme Des Garçons to create a deliciously arresting conceptual work.

Flowers have been a key interest of Knight’s; last year he published a photography book of plants from the Natural History Museum in London’s herbarium. Appealing to visuality rather than the sense of smell may be an odd choice to advertise a fragrance, but it works excellently in examining the use of the neutral-smelling cistus flower for the perfume.

The video stinks wonderfully of synesthesia, where flowers are shown in terms of dripping colour in order to describe this outlier in the floral family. Texture and colour are at the forefront in Knights work here. Fowers appear to melt into their component colours and fill large bell jars where the scent is captured.

'I was interested in evoking the relationship between painting and flowers,' explained Knight. 'In this film for Comme des Garçons I wanted to suggest that the flowers were transforming themselves into a painting: painting themselves.'

INFORMATION

See the video at Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio

Mood board: Solemn as a mass funeral and yet as intriguing as any complex work of contemporary art, Rei Kawakubo sent out another fashion collection that took root around her preferred themes of exaggerated volumes as well as fabrics that had been twisted, tied and inflated to look like bulbous forms. The human body, including protruding heads and scarecrow legs, were but mere after-thoughts to the larger mental exercise of recasting fashion norms.

Best in show: As usual, there was much to marvel at here. Kawakubo played with ruffles, ornate pleating and oversized ribbon lacings that took their cues from fairytales or the Victorian age. But the best work centered around her use of feathers, including piles of brown and white coq plumes that were built up to look like beautiful bird nests and the huge velvet casings that looked like tree trunks cinched with leaf-like feathers.

Finishing touches: In the world of Comme des Garçons, the models’ hair is treated with as much artistry as the clothes. This season Kawakubo made the case for blood red cotton candy hair sliced into wedges along with a few feathered head dresses that swallowed the model’s heads completely, save for a couple of handy eye slits.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

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Kickboxers throwing punches at a live match hosted by Snoop Dogg, who rapped his heart out in front of tattooed, motocross-padded models at Philipp Plein’s men’s show

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Hunchbacked models at Maison Margiela

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Metal cage-covered rooms, of varying proportions, built by OMA for the Prada men’s show space

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‘Boob bag’, handcrafted from dark shiny leather, on Christopher Lemaire’s runway (‘Free the nipple!’ cried social media immediately afterwards)

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Thugged-out Looney Tunes characters dripping in bling at Jeremy Scott’s women’s Moschino show

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Kilograms of culatello consumed by 1,000 people in three hours, together with 170 bottles of Fortana del Taro red wine, at Caruso’s Milan presentation

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Rising section of the runway at Saint Laurent, where models and rock star Julia Cumming from Sunflower Bean started their catwalk procession

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Male models blatanly flashing their genitalia in frontal windows strategiacally cut out of their flowing floor-length tunics at Rick Owens

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Million followers on Instagram for 29-year-old Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing, the most-followed fashion designer in France

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Hands that work on Kiton’s suits

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Kickboxers throwing punches at a live match hosted by Snoop Dogg, who rapped his heart out in front of tattooed, motocross-padded models at Philipp Plein’s men’s show

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Trees and plants that Ermenegildo Zegna planted inside Milan’s former Fiera for its fashion show, all of which were later replanted as part of the Zegna Oasis environmental project

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Models swaddled in a cocoon of white bows at the Comme des Garçons show

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Headdresses in the shape of lampshades at Junya Watanabe

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Years after their first outing that Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson reprised their Zoolander roles by staging a surprise live runway walk-off at the Valentino show in Paris

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Boys at Gucci doing the girl thing in silky bow-front blouses

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Mary J Blige impromptu concert, staged by DSquared2’s Dean and Dan Caten at the end of the brand’s 20th anniversary show in Milan

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Moncler Gamme Bleu menswear models who quick-changed out of their jockey-inspired uniforms into totally new looks under flashing strobe lights

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Kanye West charity concert nights organised by Bernard Arnault’s son Alexandre at the Louis Vuitton Foundation during Paris Fashion Week

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Face and ear piercings on the female models at Givenchy, while four men had their mouths held tightly shut with cage-like metal clamps

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Couples (both hetero and gay) dressed for 25 sports at Moncler Grenoble’s pop-up ski lodge in New York, including a bride and groom in full wedding outerwear

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Days to assemble Chanel’s pop-up brasserie set inside Paris’ Grand Palais, which featured 9m-high walls, tiled floors, 100 seats and 14 barmen serving coffee, juice, champagne and croissants

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Life-sized, fully functioning roller coaster, complete with screaming riders, installed inside Milan’s retired Fiera for Philipp Plein’s womenswear show

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Books in the pop-up library at Julie de Libran’s Sonia Rykiel show

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Age of ex-model Benedetta Barzini, who was the star of Antonio Marras’ runway show

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Spinning 20ft towers that glided across the Kenzo runway like giant chess pieces

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Infants, toddlers and children, plus one very pregnant model, walking the runway at Dolce & Gabbana’s women’s show

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Fur handbags in the shape of bird of paradise flowers on the Fendi runway

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Rare pearls on a $150,000 Calvin Klein dress, which was stolen from the hotel room of actress Lupita Nyong’o after the Oscars

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Models wearing cashmere shoe laces at the Brunello Cucinelli presentation

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Handbags shaped and printed like ceramic coffee saucers at Chanel

Mood board: What is civilised? Who decides what is correct? What influences a man more: nature or civilisation? All of these very zeitgeisty questions were asked by Rei Kawakubo and her team, queries they answered by taking classic elements of menswear and challenging them. In these interesting times, Kawakubo's answer is that art allows us all to break rules and find new juxtapositions.

Scene setting: Kawakubo's vision was stunningly echoed by the venue, set across the road from the salubrious grandeur of the Paris Opéra Garnier building, itself a fantastic example of baroque, beaux-arts architecture. Although externally the same (both were built in the same era, with the same style) the inside was entirely stripped back, its foundation exposed, no doubt about to be refitted and renewed. Comme des Garçons captured a moment of unexpected beauty in the long life of this building.

Finishing touches: The polkadot dinner shoes and 3D sculpted hairpieces brought all the fun to the collection, while clothes posed conversations on class and propriety. One jacquard toile ensemble sported a print of English huntsmen on horseback, slashed to reveal red tartan favoured by punks beneath.

Mood board: Separation was the theme that Rei Kawakubo mined into her hauntingly beautiful winter collection. Using strips of black leather, lace, pure white cotton sheets or rich gold brocade, the Japanese designer wrapped her models into wearable cages protecting women from the world outside and slipped their feet into no-nonsense shoes to ensure they could walk across it.

Best in show: As with all Comme shows, the looks got progressively more intricate and increasingly impactful in their volumes, culminating with a giant wearable igloo-like structure crafted from black strips of lace and bows that held the model like a prisoner.

Finishing touches: The hair was, as usual, spectacular. This season Kawakubo ordered a collection of hats that covered both heads and faces like gauzy, wet black cobwebs.

Fashion week, these days, is about much more than just the collections. Showmanship is the name of game, and in the meticulously executed sartorial extravaganzas, the sound space is an element that no producer or designer can afford to overlook. Music royalty - past, present and future - is enlisted to ensure a full assault on the senses.

This season there were live performances by Clare Maguire at Burberry Prorsum, Mary J Blige to celebrate the Caten brothers' 20th anniversary at Dsquared2 and Snoop Dogg at Philipp Plein, while Dior Homme enlisted the Paris Scouring Orchestra, set back with electronic beats. Here, we bring you our ultimate catwalk compilation of the men's A/W 2015 show season...

Burberry Prorsum
'Cosmic Dancer', 'Whenever You Want It', 'Shadows' and 'House of the Rising Sun' performed live by Clare Maguire

Dsquared2
'Whole Lotta Love - Dubstep Edit' by Led Zeppelin; 'Back in Black' by AC/DC; 'Black Dog' by Led Zeppelin; 'We Will Rock You' by Queen; 'Weather With You' by Crowded House; 'A Place To Stand' - Ontario Canada's theme song; 'Take Off' by Bob and Doug McKenzie; 'Pass That Dutch' by Missy Elliot; 'Ehi Oh!' by Biancaneve e i sette nani; 'Wild Thing' by Devil Doll; 'The Immigrant Song' - (Streetlab mix) by Led Zeppelin; 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana vs Adam Freeland; 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by (Butch vig-mix) Nirvana; 'Black Dog' by Led Zeppelin; 'Tom Sawyer' by Rush; 'Are You Gonna Go My Way' by Lenny Kravitz; 'Rebel Rebel' by David Bowie; 'Hot Child In The City' by Nick Gilder and a live performance of 'One' and 'Family Affair' by Mary J Blige

Roberto Cavalli
'Every Other Freckle' by alt-J; 'Cupid Carries a Gun' by Marilyn Manson; 'God's Whisper' by Raury; 'Cleaver Lever' by The Growl; 'Come Easy' by Sunset Sons; 'Track 20 Symphony 2808' by Nero

Giorgio Armani
'Downton Abbey theme song' by The Chamber Orchestra Of London; 'Johnny and Mary' by Todd Terje feat Bryan Ferry

Canali
'Opal' by Byetone; 'Etude N°6' by Philip Glass; 'EXhale' by Plastikman; 'Back 2 Black' by Herman Schwartz; 'Gimme some' by Weval
Music production: Matteo Ceccarini

Gucci
'Clock Tick' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Daydreams' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Carlos' by Shigeru Umebayashi; 'Stillness Of The Mind' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Going Somewhere' by Abel Korzeniowski
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Philipp Plein
'Jump Around' by House of Pain; 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC; Magnum PI main theme; 'What's My Name' and 'Drop it Like it's Hot' performed live by Snoop Dogg; 'Requiem' and 'Jungle Jazz performed live by Les Tambours du Bronx; 'The Blue Danube' by Strauss; 'The Thieving Magpie' by Rossini

Cerruti 1881
'Whisper' by David Byrne; 'Cooper Union' Dialogue by Joseph Beuys; 'Come Out' by Steve Reich; 'Straum' by Nils Okland

Valentino
'Valley of the Birds' by Emerald Web; 'The Imitation' by Alexandre Desplat; 'Hip Hop Spa' by Fatima Al Qadiri; 'Up and Down' by Koreless

Lanvin
'Science and Industry' by Andy Stott;  'Happy House' by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Maison Margiela
'Cancer For The Cure' by Eels; 'Twilight's Last Gleamings' by  William S Burroughs; 'The Night' by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons; 'Stripes' by Bell Orchestre; 'Loaded' by Primal Scream; 'Water / Light / Shifts' by Bell Orchestre; 'Shake  the  Disease' (remastered)  by Depeche Mode; 'Let's  Wade  In  the  Water' by Marlena Shaw; 'Eight  Sum' by Amon Tobin; 'Paul's  Nightmare' by DJ Paul Elstak; 'One  Minute To Midnight' by Justice

Kris Van Assche
'Negative Creep' and 'The Magnificent Bukkake' by Koudlam
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Kenzo
'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' by Saint Etienne

Dior Homme
'Landsc Apes' by Koudlam, arrangement by Thomas Roussel and performed by Paris Scoring Orchestra

Junya Watanabe
'Oh Honey' (Original 12'' Version) by The Delegation; 'Say That You Will' by George Duke S; 'Float On' by The Floaters; 'Unicorn' by Dizzy Gillespie & Lalo Schifrin; 'Safari Vibes' by Daniele Baldelli; 'Cosmic Funk' by Lonnie Liston Smith; 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' by John Lloyd Young

Dries Van Noten
'Be My Baby' performed by DM Stith, written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector

3.1 Phillip Lim
'When I Put My Hands On You' by The New Basement Tapes; 'Reduct Live' by Skee Mask; 'Cylo' by Skee Mask; 'Security Of The First World' by Public Enemy

Paul Smith
'Snare Liftoff' by Justin Hurwitz & Tim Simonec; '54-46 Was My Number' by Toots & The Maytals; 'Witness Dub' by Roots Manuva; 'Mirror In The Bathroom' by The Beat; 'Just Can't Stop The Dub' by The Beat; 'North Of The River Thames' by Doctor Pablo and The Dub Syndicate

Comme des Garçons
Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack mixed with Alessandro Cortini electronica
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Saint Laurent
'Me Suive' by Mystere collective, written and composed by Marlon Magnée, Sacha Got and Sam Lefèvre in Brittany for Saint Laurent 'Paris Sessions'