Claremont Core: The Comme des Garons Universe (TBD)

(Quinn Nachtrieb Student Life)

Since its creation in 1969, the Japanese brand Comme des Garons (CDG) etched his name in fashion history, revolutionizing modern design by recontextualizing the relationship between a garment and the wearer.

The brand's unique approach to shape, layering and accessories has led to hundreds of eccentrically brilliant shows for both men's and women's wear and the success of the initial brand has led to the formation of more than 20 distribution lines and a retail universe like no other. .

Unfortunately, CDG as a whole is plagued by a rather particular curse: popularity.

One of the broadcast lines, CDG PLAY, was established in 2002 under the name an antithesis of design, covering basic clothing styles not usually seen on a runway, most of them featuring the famous heart logo with two eyes placed upwards. The affordable and accessible designs that contrasted with most brands' previous work led to a sharp rise in the popularity of the PLAY line. This led to the now ubiquitous collaboration with Converse that expands each year. PLAY, although it is the 10th CDG diffusion line created, has the most easily recognizable line and logo of the brand.

In terms of sales, this is a blessing for the brand; clothing produced for PLAY is very easy to mass produce and long-term collaborations with Converse will never go out of style. However, for fashion enthusiasts, it hurts to see a brand with such a rich and innovative design history being overshadowed by PLAY, a line born from an ironic desire to contrast with the original brand.

What better reason, then, for a little brand profile to show everyone what they've been missing? There is certainly no shortage of history.

Founded by the legendary Rei Kawakubo in 1969, CDG didn't officially introduce its first women's and men's clothing collections until 1973 and 1978 respectively. This is precisely the emergence of what we could call the Big Three of Japanese creators: CDG, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto.

The emergence of the three brands and their Japanese influences stood in stark contrast to the traditional Western design ethos that dominated the catwalks at the time, earning Kawakubo racist criticism for collections like 1982's Destroy, which featured ripped sweaters that critics called Hiroshima chic even if he looks more like Vivienne Westwood than any other Japanese designer.

Kawakubo experimented extensively with color (or lack thereof) and silhouette early on, elevating the role of many other Japanese designers in his wake. The likes of Keiichi Tanaka, Kei Ninomiya, Tao Kurihara and Junya Watanabe have all risen to prominence within the brand. The latter three even have CDG broadcast lines under their own name, which only adds to their notoriety.

But the influence of the Kawakubos does not stop there; she briefly dated Yohji Yamamoto in the early 1980s and they presented their first collections together in Paris. Her current husband, Adrian Joffe, runs CDG PLAY and Dover Street Market, the popular high fashion department store in Japan, Europe and the United States.

Besides the official CDG stores, which are often isolated locations with incredible layouts, Dover Street Market features the largest CDG selection of any store with 17 lines available, including wallets and perfumes. It's truly a sight to see so many different types of clothing represented in one space, especially since they each appeal to different target audiences and design interests.

Among the diffusion lines, there is CDG Homme, the original line of pragmatic menswear, CDG SHIRT, which delights in reformatting classic menswear via collaborations and patchwork themes and CDG BLACK, which presents (you (you guessed it) mostly black clothing containing minor modifications to traditional clothing. themes.

Notably, few women's runway clothes are sold in stores; this is because Kawakubos' main designs remained as original as they were early in his career. They could probably just as easily be described as works of art.

As a result, Kawakubos designs take much longer to make than traditional Western clothing and are not easily replicable. CDG still makes many women's clothing items, including the CDG Girl line, but these runway pieces are produced over such a long period of time and in such small quantities that they are not as readily available for consumption.

Interestingly, Kawakubo said that in the past 10 years, she has not focused on designing clothes but on designing objects for the body. This explains why his recent work has been even more abstract than usual, extending the notion of runway pieces from pieces not meant to be worn normally to pieces perhaps not meant to be worn at all.

Nonetheless, Kawakubo continues to innovate in his choice of materials and strange and fantastical twists on everyday objects; in particular, the CDG Men's SS24 collection features two pairs of derby shoes in collaboration with Kids Love Gaite that are literally two pairs of shoes molded together; a pair is stacked on top of each other and other features one shoe protruding from the side of each of the others.

CDG has long embodied the countercultural philosophy behind many high fashion and streetwear brands and it doesn't look like the brand is going anywhere anytime soon. Although, at 81, the younger Kawakubo is undoubtedly nearing the end of her career, she has made it clear that her legacy will be in good hands.

The aim of this article is therefore to ensure that this legacy is not limited to Converse with heart.

Gus Gingrich PO 24 is from Walnut Creek, California. In his free time, he likes to stress over bidding wars on Japanese auction sites and make fun of his dorm closet remodels.

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