Comme desGarçons
Rei Kawakubo founded Comme des Garçons in Tokyo in 1969 and has remained its sole designer ever since, upending Western fashion in the early 1980s with deconstructed, asymmetric, often defiantly anti-pretty clothing. The label sits at the center of a group that includes Junya Watanabe and noir kei ninomiya, and its Paris shows remain among the most conceptually uncompromising on the calendar.
Profile
Comme des GarçonsKawakubo’s 1981 Paris debut — torn knits, black, garments that ignored the body’s expected lines — was received as an attack and understood, in time, as a liberation; her 1997 “lumps and bumps” collection padded dresses into new anatomies and remains a design-school text. She has never softened the project: each season is an idea given form, commerce be damned.
Around the runway, Kawakubo built one of fashion’s great ecosystems — the Dover Street Market retail concept, the PLAY line’s heart logo, and a group structure that incubated Watanabe, Ninomiya, and generations of protégés. In 2017 the Met devoted its Costume Institute exhibition to her — only the second living designer ever so honored — confirming what Paris had known for decades: Comme des Garçons is fashion’s conscience and its frontier.
Paris Fashion Week SS27
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Comme des Garçons's Paris Fashion Week SS27 show is invitation-only — but the city isn't. The Bureau's public Paris Fashion Week SS27 program runs October 2–3, 2026 at Espace Cléry. Leave your email for access and ticket-release alerts.
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