“Live free.” “Strong will.” These were the exhortations emblazoned in stitch-edged shirting fabric script upon the garments at Comme des Garçons Shirt this morning. Such wearable rhetoric typically proves empty. Not here. Having ascertained that everyone who needed to be present was in the showroom, this 9:15am scheduled show began at 9:09am. There was no schedule stretching to allow for front-row photos with “friends of” the house who “had chosen” to wear this or that: instead we got straight to it.
To a piano bar rendition of Radiohead’s Karma Police, a collection that delicately distorted convention unfolded briskly and without unnecessary ceremony. The script you can see for yourself; how it drifted in and out of the collection, emphatically at first before fading away and in looks 33 and 35 being finally pulled apart. There was ostentatious apparent basic-ness to many of the ensembles—khaki Bermudas under a gray T-shirt; a gray sweat over white Bermudas; the white Chuck Taylor lows—that was denuded as you considered the volume of the shorts (almost A-line) and the layering of the tees. There was a great, subtle precision of some cuffed, cut mid-shin pants that came in and out of the run.
Some implied blanks were filled via pink or blue shirts with cut out sections and fine gauge knitwear in multicolor patches: these were later echoed in colorful geometric pattern-front shirts. There were a couple of shirts that were pure white collar except for the straps that restrained the wearer’s arm from free movement: “I’ve given all I can, but we’re still on the payroll.”
There was a brief Fred Perry cameo before we saw a series of great distorted quilted jackets by the made-in-Suffolk English outerwear brand Lavenham. This style of jacket is especially popular among British commuters (they’re great for wearing over tailoring). Here it was amusing to see how the Shirt team had remixed that UK salaryman archetype: they were twisted and as disrupted as the British rail network, but it was a disruption born of design rather than neglect. By the time this show was over, my watch said it was barely the official time for it to begin. Strong will, strong show.
