As seen in yesterday's post, there were comic book prints and patchworked grids in Comme des Garçons Homme Plus' A/W 2018 collection. These two themes extended in the Shirt collection and took new meanings and configurations.
If Homme Plus represents a rich dictionary in Comme des Garçons' language, the Shirt line is to be interpreted as its pocket version, more compact and abbreviated, but featuring all the conceptual lexicon you need.
The Boy range opened the show with fitted shirts in bright solid colours and beanies with commercial Mickey Mouse and bunny ears. The ears then moved to the shoulders of shirts or provided ironic extensions to the hoods of classic gray sweats.
Then followed shirts and tops with lightly padded abstract shapes reminiscent of Alexander Calder's mobiles.
These collaged motifs gave the shirts an intrinsic dynamism: the organic shapes were at times appliqued on the shirts, at others they dug concentric motifs on the fabric, creating different layers and depths.
Other shirts were tranformed with panels held by buckled straps and by a minimalist childish motif – squiggly buttons in primary colours (the physical proof that the simplest ideas are often the best ones and they can even add an arty twist to a basic piece…) – on gingham check shirts (were children's gingham smocks the main inspiration for these pieces?).
The central part of the show featured shirts with artworks by Jean-Michel Basquiat (all images were approved by the artist's estate).
Kawakubo printed some of them, including the gritty figures in "Cabeza" and "Ernok" surrounded by scrawled lettering.
Other artworks were instead framed in the structure of the garment and redecorated with graphic elements by Kawakubo herself that extended from the front of the shirts to the back.
This art touch gave the designs a timeless touch, you know indeed that years may pass, but the shirts will remain wardrobe essentials.
The final section featured elegant bleached denim suits and more serious black ones, matched for an ironic effect with plasticised totes covered with children's cartoon characters such as Buzz Lightyear.
Maybe the suits referenced the designs donned by Basquiat himself when he walked in the S/S 1987 Comme des Garçons Homme Plus show, maybe there were other meanings to read between the lines or even a parable.
The Bohemian artist lived in a sort of liminal space, suspended between childhood and adulthood, his career also followed the trajectory of Wall Street, booming between 1983 and 1987, appearing in major magazines, being interviewed on cool channels à la MTV and modelling for Comme des Garçons, before dying prematurely. So the collection may have been an appendix of the Homme Plus one, with an invitation to wearers not to grow up and preserve the heart of a child.
Though the ghost of Basquiat hovered on the runway, the main protagonist of the show obviously remained the shirt in its manifold mutable forms. Attached to this iconic garment there was a message: if you think that a shirt is a precise and fossilised idea, you're greatly misled.
Related articles
