Take a stroll round Omotesando early on a weekday morning and also you’ll spot them. Dressed of their unmistakable finery—pouffy skirts, pearl-buttoned fits, and chunky sneakers—they slowly converge within the streets, completely distinct from the drearily dressed salarymen and girls additionally on their strategy to work. The vacation spot of those distinctive however uniformly trendy disciples is identical: the Comme des Garçons workplace in Aoyama. That is the comme-ute.
It’s the singular expertise of inadvertently becoming a member of the Comme employees on their strategy to work that gives the preamble to Tao Kurihara’s 9 a.m. runway exhibits, which occur every season in a darkish concrete room on the seventh ground of the model’s HQ. That Tao’s exhibits occur right here, within the interior sanctum of CDG, feels proper. The designer is a comparatively hidden element of the secure, being that she doesn’t present in Paris like Kei Ninomiya or Junya Watanabe. Of all of the senior designers within the firm, Tao’s aesthetic sits closest to the primary line—but it stays distinctly her personal, a fearlessly whimsical drive that’s onerous to outline however straightforward to acknowledge.
This season Kurihara set herself the problem of utilizing supplies she had by no means used earlier than (faux leather-based, metallic materials, sequins). She known as the gathering Black and Gold, and so it unfolded: a troupe of shiny black, paneled skirts and floral embroidered vests, damaged up by flashes of white within the button-up shirts and white T-shirt sleeves, after which refined glints of gold within the skirts and Mary Janes.
After the black and gold got here a sudden shift to deconstructed scarlet velvet and a touch of plaid, plus some silver and gold comb jewellery—a collaboration with comb artisan Lovechrome. Subsequent, a quick however lavish explosion of baroque prints and gold-splattered, chocolate-colored tulle that was tied in chaotic knots throughout the torso, earlier than a ultimate return to gold, most strikingly within the tiered ruffled skirts that have been as skinny and delicate-looking as gold leaf. In clarification, the characteristically temporary present notes learn: “A world that shines brightly within the darkness.”
So what’s that world all about, and the place did the narrative come from? The ornate prints, white ruffles, and Mozart-esque wigs have been, absolutely, a reference to rococo menswear? “Under no circumstances!” trilled Kurihara fortunately after the present. “If that got here by, it was utterly unconscious.” The purple? “I assumed the gathering wanted it.” And what did you need to convey? “I needed to create one thing that might make individuals suppose, ‘Oh!’”
In that purity of method lies potent and refreshing creativity; you’ll be able to’t think about Kurihara would tolerate the calls for of a merchandiser or a advertising and marketing division to make her garments extra industrial, and but they’re completely wearable. Come autumn, Tao followers in Omotesando and past will don these golden skirts and floral-embossed coats on their very own morning commutes—every one a bit world, shining brightly within the darkness.