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.

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.

comme-des-garcons-parfum.com

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.

‘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.

doverstreetmarket.com

Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe built a cult love heart label; Alfred Stieglitz gave American modernism Georgia O'Keeffe; and Queen Elizabeth II rules a kingdom alongside Prince Phillip. However contrasting in creative output, there’s no questioning that these prolific partnerships give new meaning to the term ‘power couple’.

In the latest edition in her series exploring groundbreaking personalities (see Visionary Women, Life as a Visitor and Pioneers of the Possible) Angella Nazarian manages to weave the lifestyles of contrary couples with the thread of an unmatched bond between two human beings in her new tome, Creative Couples: Collaborations That Changed History.

Nazarian, while writing the predecessors to this book, discovered that many of the significant innovations of the 20th century came through the joint efforts of men and women (or otherwise) working synergistically. This cultural shift over the last century towards greater participation by women has created a much needed sense of urgency to discuss the ways in which men are potential allies and supporters of creative growth.

‘I wanted to better comprehend the underlying factors of two people coming together — as a couple, as well as partners in work — and to examine how personal relationships affect a couple’s working relationship,’ says Nazarian.

With this in mind, Nazarian has compiled a group of 15 couples that have operated as a joint force in each other’s lives and the world at large. The book design is as bold as the love stories inside, with the front cover featuring a pop art image of Charles and Ray Eames, just one of the included couples with a love story as colourful as their shared aesthetic.

Each of the pairings have their own unique relationship characteristics and ensuing dynamics; but there's not just one magic formula that fits all partnerships. Some would even say there’s no fate worse than dating an artist. But with Nazarian’s deep-dive into each of her couples, it’s clear that great power comes in two halves.

INFORMATION

Creative Couples, Collaborations That Changed History, published by Assouline

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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A procession of petticoated Victorian hikers traversing crumpled paper mountains; 6.5m-high mechanical cylinders resembling steaming underwater pistons; a monastic chapel hanging with paintings by artist-monk Sidival Fila. These are just three of the eight scenes, hidden beneath huge tents of silver fabric, which greeted guests at Moncler’s Genius Project debut, in the cavernous Milanese stadium Palazzo delle Scintille in February.

The premise? A roster of designers – from Simone Rocha (winner of a 2018 Wallpaper* Design Award, W*227) to Craig Green, Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli and Rei Kawakubo’s protégé Kei Ninomiya – were invited to put their creative spin on the brand’s signature padded down jacket. Their creations were to be released in line with a new retail strategy, one that disrupts the traditional seasonal cycle with fresh drops of product put on sale each month (a model that nods to the selling strategies of street and sportswear brands such as Supreme and Nike).

‘I started looking at images of women wearing voluminous silhouettes among really rugged landscapes,’ says Rocha of the 19th-century Alpine trekkers, such as Maria de Mont Blanc and Henriette d’Angeville, that inspired her collection’s fusion of ‘femininity and practicality’. For the Milan presentation, the London-based Irish designer created a scene of hikers, milling against shadowy paper peaks, clad in gauzy petticoat layers, lampshade dresses in padded down, shiny puffer jackets with frills and frothy finishes, and marabou-trimmed accessories.

‘I’ve long been intrigued by Rocha’s sophisticated and hyper-feminine aesthetic,’ says Remo Ruffini, chairman and CEO of Moncler. The brand’s original, now ubiquitous, padded down jackets were first conceived in 1954, and Rocha brought her mastery of airy fabrics, such as organza and cloqué, to their ultra-light construction. ‘What was so surprising was that I could manipulate the fabric like taffeta or tulle,’ Rocha explains. She saw the padded garments as a ‘jigsaw’, the seams of which could be pieced together to create voluminous shapes – such as an A-line coat, its linear puffed sections widening towards the knee, and a jacket with undulating ruffles sprouting from its seams.

Ideas of growth and blossoming were essential to Rocha’s design concept, which worked to assimilate outdoorsy garments into their natural environments. ‘I was looking at foliage and flowers growing up through rocks,’ she explains. Signature handwork, such as beading, sequins and embroidered flowers, appears to push through seams or cluster around the graphic Moncler logo. ‘I used pearls to evoke a snowy mountain palette,’ she adds of the collection, which is realised in white, powdery pink, red and black.

An element of protection is often evident in Rocha’s designs for her own label, her romantic silhouettes offset against militaristic cross-body belts and oversized cushiony bags. In her accessories for Moncler, she has emphasised functionality, creating nylon hiking backpacks that buckle around the waist and padded ski mittens. ‘It’s something I’ve never done before in terms of manufacturing,’ she enthuses. Her experimentation with technical fabrics is also seen in signature flaring dresses and soft double-breasted coats reinterpreted in nylon.

‘The Moncler Genius Project was very much about everyone having their own identity but being part of the brand’s voice,’ Rocha explains of unveiling her collection amid offerings as diverse as Craig Green’s padded men’s diving suits and Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Madonna-inspired flaring capes.

‘We’re establishing a dialogue with consumers, talking to different audiences and continuing to evolve,’ adds Ruffini.

Included in Rocha’s collection is a range of sunglasses. Ski goggle-inspired and ovular, they appear as if circled with black droplets of water. Functional yet feminine, made for the outdoors yet opulent, they serve as a symbol of Moncler’s multifarious vision. §

As originally featured in the September 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*234)

INFORMATION

4 Moncler Simone Rocha is available from mid-September. For more information, visit the Moncler and Simone Rocha websites

Brussels is home to a new design fair, Collectible – a show dedicated to 21st-century contemporary design. Under the curatorial helm of Maria Cristina Didero, Pascale Mussard, Jan Boelen and Wallpaper* brand and content director Tony Chambers, collectible wares will be presented across six floors of the light-filled Vanderborght building. Exhibitors include Brussels gallery Victor Hunt and ToolsGalerie Paris, designers Os ∆ Oos and Xavier Lust, and special projects from the likes of Van den Weghe and ABC Klubhuis, here’s our highlights to look out for…

Maniera Gallery

Last year, Paris gallery A1043 exhibited the furniture of Rei Kawakubo, the elusive visionary behind Comme des Garçons. At Collectible, Maniera gallery are inviting A1043 to present the conceptual pieces again, but this time within the architecture of Vanderborght, giving the futuristic furniture a whole new narrative.

Supergufram

The radical Italian design company Gufram will be displaying the collections of its spin-off brand Supergufram that launched last year. The limited-edition and often humorously designed pieces by Studio Job explore the borders between art and design while showing experimentation with materials like polyurethane.

KUF Studios

Founded by Kia Utzon-Frank, the multidisciplinary studio spans architectural cakes (KUFcakes) to dynamic shelving systems (KUFtwist). For Collectible, the Danish designer will be presenting brutalist flødeboller (classic Danish sweet treats) displayed atop new iterations of the KUFtwist shelving that will be made with cord instead of ribbon.

Os ∆ Oos

The Dutch design duo are bringing a set of their newest pieces to Collectible. Included is geometric lighting collection ‘Matrix’ (pictured) that is imbued with the studio’s material experimentation, and their play with form and function

Victor Hunt Gallery

The Belgian gallery will focus on the works of Maarten De Ceulaer, creating a contemporary space with many of the designer’s modular projects including the ‘Transformation’ series for Fendi and Design Miami (2012) and ‘Suitcases’ project that nods to the De Ceulaer’s passion for travel in a whimsical installation of leather pieces (pictured)

INFORMATION

Collectible is on view from 7-11 March. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Vanderborght
Rue de l'Ecuyer
1000 Bruxelles
Belgium

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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

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

This month marks Wallpaper’s coming of age: our 21st anniversary. It’s also my tenth year as editor-in-chief, having switched from being creative director in April 2007. I must confess that my coming of age came a number of years earlier. Time flies.

One of the earliest projects I worked on in my new role was our inaugural October Guest Editors’ Issue. Now, many media outlets have given over their editorial reins to appropriate talents in order to bring a fresh perspective and generate some PR buzz. But because of Wallpaper’s multi-faceted editorial remit, we felt our spin on the concept should be equally all-encompassing – we would invite not just one, but up to three diverse creatives each year who would reflect our offering, but also push us to try new things.

So year one saw a purist industrial designer, Dieter Rams, an iconoclastic artist, Jeff Koons, and a much-more-than-a-fashion-designer fashion designer, Hedi Slimane. To rebalance the unintentional male bias for 2007, the next year saw Louise Bourgeois, Zaha Hadid and Rei Kawakubo bring art, architecture, and fashion girl power to our pages. Subsequent editions have seen Karl Lagerfeld, Philippe Starck, David Lynch, Robert Wilson, Kraftwerk, Christian Marclay, Lang Lang, Ole Scheeren, Taryn Simon, Laurie Simmons, Elmgreen & Dragset, Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, William Wegman and Liz Diller have fun at our expense. That makes 21 in total, and therefore a convenient excuse to take a retrospective look, as well as request some updates for our latest issue. (Our thickest issue yet, the spine also happens to measure a serendipitous 21mm)

In addition to a 20-plus page section within the magazine, each of our Guest Editors was also invited to design a cover. Many called for unusual paper technologies – Hedi used specialist printing inks to simulate glitter, whereas Karl invited readers to strip the Dior Homme suit off his muse by means of a peelable layer. Starck constructed a transparent front cover using three layers of tracing paper. And Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter tacked on a pair of 3D specs, to go with his 3D cover portrait and portfolio of exclusive images tied to key Kraftwerk compositions.

If I had to pick one favourite project it would be Zaha’s. Her cover was a gatefold construction using multiple die-cuts, while inside she produced a 16-page die-cut sculpture, which was a take on her ‘Lotus’ room installation at that year’s Venice Biennale. ‘I want to put a big hole in the magazine’, she told us. We dutifully obliged.

Zaha was profiled by art critic Matthew Collings, who visited her at her London offices and provided a pleasant distraction from discussions about cement. Collings and ‘Big Z’, as he affectionately called her, hit it off immediately. ‘Her architecture is the greatest art of the moment,’ he said.

So it’s a huge pleasure for me and I think a fitting tribute to Zaha (who tragically passed away 18 months ago) that this anniversary issue’s cover was created by Zaha Hadid Architects and its principal and torchbearer, Patrik Schumacher.

Enjoy this special issue and raise a glass to Big Z.

Tony Chambers, Editor-in-Chief

As originally featured in the October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*223)

Our thickest issue yet, the spine also happens to measure a serendipitous 21mm, in keeping with our celebration of 21 years, and 21 guest editors

INFORMATION

The October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* is out now. Subscribe here

Being scooped up by Comme des Garçons' talent incubator and offered the opportunity to design your own collection is not an honour granted to many. In fact, you can count the enigmatic gang on one hand - Junya Watanabe, Tao Kurihara, Fumito Ganryu and now, Kei Ninomiya included.

Ninomiya, who graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University with a degree in French Literature, before attending Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, dropped out to join Comme des Garçons in Tokyo as a pattern cutter in 2008. Five years later, in April 2012 he was encouraged to launch his own brand by mentor Rei Kawakubo, presenting his first collection in October 2012 under the label 'Noir Kei Ninomiya'.

The brand moniker was decided on with Kawakubo, and is the latest under the Comme des Garçons umbrella. But what's in a name? For Ninomiya, the colour void created by black's conclusive nature offers space for perpetual rebirth, which he aspires to fill with techniques and processes - be them his preference for intricate laser cutting, knitting with metal hardware or meticulous fold detailing. In this avant-garde environment, concept is king, and the 30-year-old's design process is wrapped up in an abiding search for alternative ways to re-address form.  

After shooting his Autumn/Winter 2014 collection in Paris we speak to the Tokyo-based designer about Kawakubo's influence and his ambitions for Noir…

Wallpaper*: Why 'Noir'?
Kei Ninomiya: Noir explores designs themed around black. I like the image of black.

What does the pigment mean to you?
The fewer the elements of expression, the more the other elements come to life.

What's the most important lesson you learned from working with Rei Kawakubo?
Working with Rei Kawakubo has taught me to approach creation with directness and integrity.

How do you define your approach to design?
When designing I always look for an element of surprise, or some detail that I find captivating.

What is most important to you... materials or techniques?
The process of creating is most important - either that or the element of surprise that turns up as a result.

You have said that you did not necessarily see yourself as a fashion designer... what were some of the other paths you thought/think that you would/will tread?
I'm just not all that comfortable about being labeled a fashion designer. I haven't really thought about another path of life. I would be happy with anything that gives me independence and freedom.

What was your inspiration for A/W 2014, shown here?
I don't remember the exact starting point of the designs, but if I had to give a couple of keywords they would be depth and continuity. I wanted to express a subdued, powerful black.

And the season's pleating and folding techniques… how were they achieved?
Countless strips of material are connected with rings or tape and shaped into garments. This season the pieces are cut out from unconventional patterns, and then assembled with techniques other than sewing.

Aside from black, what will remain consistent with Noir aesthetically going forward?
Noir will consistently seek out new forms of expression. The means to do this it will change each season - approach, details, and techniques.

To mark the tenth anniversary of the revolutionary retail concept Dover Street Market, the original London store reopens its doors this week after 72 hours of Tachiagari ('beginning' in Japanese) reinvention, kicking off a month-long calendar of special projects, limited edition products and installations.

'Tachiagari is part of Dover Street Market's DNA,' says vice president Dickon Bowden on the store's signature mode of creative flux that's seen artists and set designers dream up infinite concept spaces over the years, 'It continues in everything we do.'

This birthday facelift includes the expansion of the ground floor's fine jewellery space (remodelled by English artist Tom Price), an enlarged rooftop Rose Bakery café, the global launch of G I R L (Comme des Garçons' fragrance collaboration with Pharrell Williams), and Tokyo's Good Design Shop's basement residency.

'Rei [Kawakubo] has always been very inspired by the energy and the clashing of different people coming together within markets, which ultimately resulted with this beautiful chaos idea,' explains Bowden.

The celebrations technically began in late August with Louis Vuitton's first DSM concept space (the brand has historically only been available through its own boutiques and department store partners) debuting Nicolas Ghesquière's A/W 2014 collection, housed on the first floor until 14 October.

Equally as anticipated is this week's erection of a series of 'Market Street Dover' themed stalls scattered around the store, selling reasonably priced DSM souvenirs that have been either curated or created by DSM founder and Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo, along with exclusive products fashioned by designers from Simone Rocha to Rick Owens and Giambattista Valli.

And although the DSM concept has now expanded to Ginza, Tokyo and New York, initially, it was inspired by London's famed Kensington Market. 'She used to love going there,' continues Bowden, referring to the three-storey indoor market on London's Kensington High Street. The bohemian enclave catered to almost all of Britain's sprawling sub cultures over the years, from the hippies to the ravers, via the punks, before it closed its doors in the 1990s.

'Each one has its own personality,' continues Bowden of the three stand-alone emporiums. 'London is the original and it's the soul of Dover Street; Ginza is a beautiful, beautiful store; and New York encapsulates the chaos very aptly.' Indeed the latest edition spans seven floors, east of Midtown on New York's Lexington Avenue.

And despite the fact that this milestone is being celebrated under DSM's forward-focused 'The Next Ten Years' campaign, we couldn't help looking back at some of the stellar collaborations from fashion brands and artists that have transformed this London space over the years, as talents like Matt Moser-Clark and Gary Card have each let their imaginations roam wild to fuel pure merchandising magic.

'They give so much freedom to experiment and make things the way I intend them,' says Card of his interactions with the brand. 'I'm a strong believer in the first instinctive idea being the best, and Dover Street are so open to that, they are extremely receptive to strange ideas, yet nothing is strained or forced.' The set designer's most ambitious project included an installation of 40 clown heads displaying 40 pairs of glasses, each one lovingly sculpted from 100 roles of masking tape, which toured all branches.

Moser-Clark shares the sentiment: 'Working as an artist, you quickly learn how fast the world turns, and then working with DSM I learnt how much faster fashion moves. The whole thing is an experience not a shop.' The first project he worked on was a window piece called 'The Ship of Fools' back in 2011. 'It was as you might expect, a sort of fishing trawler decorated with ice cream sundaes,' he says of the work that was about the same size as his studio at the time.

'You'll be doing a window at 3 or 4 in the morning and people are stopping and taking pictures,' reflects Bowden on their unexpected displays that wink out from one of Mayfair's poshest addresses. 'That's hugely satisfying.'

ADDRESS

17-18 Dover Street
London W1S 4LT

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The debut of Dover Street Market New York coincides with the reopening of Comme des Garçons' Chelsea boutique, refurbished for the first time since it launched in 1999. The revamp sees the iconic, undulating space in Chelsea’s art district transformed with a wash of molten gold. ‘According to research, when babies are given a choice of colours, they often choose gold,’ explained Rei Kawakubo. ‘I imagined a magical and intimate world of gold, my third colour after black and red.’ With light shades by Beirut’s .Pslab, two gilt sculptural installations by artist Kohei Nawa and much of the furniture realised in the auspicious hue, the gold-dipped space is truly a sight to behold.

ADDRESS

Comme des Garçons
520 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011 USA

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New year shopping sprees came early for fashion fans in New York, with the opening of Rei Kawakubo's Dover Street Market in the Big Apple. Occupying a neoclassical building on 30th Street and Lexington Avenue, the New York iteration of the cult, multi-brand emporium has spread itself over seven floors and boasts even more curated treasures than its siblings.

Like its London and Ginza outposts, Dover Street Market New York brings together a host of creative expressions in poetic cacophony. In addition to carrying the full Comme des Garçons range, the boutique stocks a clashing mix of brands (many of which have created special collections for the store), ranging from niche favourites like Yang Li, Casely Hayford and Visvim to big names like Prada, Alexander Wang and Saint Laurent, with some fresh gems, such as Andre Walker and 1205, thrown in as well. There are several specially commissioned artworks, ranging from sound sculptures by Brooklyn artist Calx Vive to wall murals by Japanese artist Enomoto Koichi, interspersed throughout the mammoth space.

The store's unusual location on a less-trodden street in Midtown East Manhattan not only makes sense once the majestic building comes into view, but brings an alluring sense of discovery to the well-loved brand. Previously inhabited by Touro College, the building was empty for four years before the fashion company got its hands on it. The premises were completely gutted and designed by Rei Kawakubo, whose design included installing a 64 square-foot glass elevator that runs through the core of the boutique.

In addition to the reappearance of familiar features like the corrugated metal huts, vibrant use of polka dots and an outpost of the beloved Rose Bakery, Dover Street Market New York has especially amped things up with a different site-specific installation around each of the three columns that traverse the ground floor space. The research-based art practice London Fieldworks has covered one with a frenetic assemblage of wooden boxes, 'yarn bomber' Magda Sayeg has tackled another with one of her signature knitted constructions, while the third has been transformed by junk sculptor Leo Sewell with recycled objects to dizzying visual effect.

Despite the fact that Kawakubo carefully oversaw most details of the boutique, many of the store's inhabitants, including Prada, Sacai, Rick Owens and eyewear brand Moscot, have been given creative license to design their own retail space, resulting in a colourful pastiche of aesthetics. In a released statement, the elusive Kawakubo said, 'I want[ed] to create a kind of market where various creators from various fields gather together and encounter each other in an ongoing atmosphere of beautiful chaos; the mixing up and coming together of different kindred souls who all share a strong personal vision.'

Adrian Joffe, president of Comme des Garçons and husband to the enigmatic designer added, 'The whole idea behind Dover Street Market is to provide a new, stimulating and fun shopping experience. For New York, we wanted to create a contrasting feeling to the complex vibrant city that is New York. Kawakubo's main idea was to do the opposite of sophistication; a humble rendering of the respect for nature by using only one material: wood.'

The debut of Dover Street Market New York coincides with the reopening of Comme des Garçons' Chelsea boutique, which has been refurbished for the first time since it opened in 1999. The iconic, undulating space has been covered with gold. With furniture, light shades designed by Beirut's .PSLAB and two sculptural installations by artist Kohei Nawa all realised in the auspicious hue, the space is truly a sight to behold.

A neoclassical New York building at the corner of 30th Street and Lexington Avenue has been remodeled for Rei Kawakubo's latest concept store. Previously inhabited by Touro College, the building was empty for four years before the fashion company got its hands on it

Despite the fact that Kawakubo carefully oversaw most details of the boutique, many of the store's inhabitants, including Prada, Sacai, Rick Owens and eyewear brand Moscot, have been given creative license to design their own retail space, resulting in a colourful pastiche of aesthetics.

Prada's concept space has been developed around the store's glass elevator shaft and will be an ever-changing installation in itself. For the opening, special mannequins have been exclusively painted by Gabriel Specter, one of the mural artists involved in the decoration of Prada's S/S 2014 Milan show space

ADDRESS

Dover Street Market New York, 160 Lexington Avenue at 30th Street, New York

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To celebrate reaching the grand age of 60, Fred Perry has teamed up with Dover Street Market to present a special collection of one-off shirts. The British brand charged sixty of its most valued patrons and cohorts with reimagining the original 1952 Fred Perry shirt. The result? A collection that is as eclectic as its creative collaborators, which include photographic power duo Inez and Vinoodh, painter Horace Panter, graphic designer Neville Brody and local fashion label Sibling.

The first 25 customisations are currently on display in an installation specially conceived by set designer Andy Hillman. London is the first leg of the collection's international tour, which will see it pitch up at Dover Street Market's outpost in Tokyo and the IT Beijing Market, before being auctioned off to raise money for the Amy Winehouse Foundation. In addition to the bespoke polos, British designers Simone Rocha, Giles, Christopher Raeburn and JW Anderson all had their hand in a limited edition run of shirts that will be available for purchase in store.

The anniversary exhibition at London's Dover Street Market coincided with the unveiling of the store’s 18th Tachiagari, the biannual metamorphosis of its interior that heralds each new fashion season. Saint Laurent - which picked up 'Best Rebranding' in this year's Wallpaper* Design Awards - introduced its new retail concept, designed by Hedi Slimane, to the UK for the first time. Meanwhile, Rocha contributed to the ever-extraordinary rotation of window installations, at the same time as unveiling of her first ever shop. Finally, Rei Kawabuko once again excercised her creative prowess on a re-design of the Third Floor.

We popped down to DSM to check out the newly revamped space ...

ADDRESS

17-18 Dover St
London W1S 4LT

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