The war in Ukraine is still in the headlines, sharing the spotlight with the situation in the Middle East, where the Israel-Hamas ceasefire has broken 15 months of war.
Yet, a simple search for armed conflicts across the globe reveals a stark reality: ongoing turmoil stretches from Sudan to Somalia, Yemen, and Myanmar, just to mention a few countries.
Beyond these active battlegrounds, there are whispers of potential conflicts brewing, with US President Donald Trump harboring imperialist ambitions on Greenland, Canada, and Panama, while engaging in economic warfare through tariffs aimed at nations he disapproves of.
Besides, the language of war and conflict, remains a favorite for him and for other leaders intent on fortifying their borders, framing migrants not as individuals fleeing poverty and despair but as invading forces.
Fashion, a world ostensibly distant from the harsh realities of war, paradoxically draws inspiration from it time and again. Military motifs regularly march down the runways, with camouflage prints resurfacing in collections like echoes of distant battles.
Yet at the moment few designers dare to confront this moment of global disarray, wary of stumbling onto a metaphorical minefield that could alienate consumers and jeopardize their brand's allure.
But fearlessness is Rei Kawakubo's hallmark. Last week in Paris, her Comme des Garçons Homme Plus show boldly tackled war as a theme.
"To hell with war," she proclaimed backstage to fashion critics looking for a comment to dissect the label's Autumn/Winter 2025 collection.
That defiance echoed through her designs, starting from the army boots rendered useless with their upturned toe boxes, as if frozen mid-kick, a symbol of rejection, or maybe hinting at functional boots made useless and looking therefore surreal, a commentary on the absurdity of conflict through the language of fashion.
Military tailoring took center stage, but in true Rei Kawakubo fashion, it was deconstructed and reimagined into something wholly subversive. Olive-green jackets, hallmarks of the military attire, were spliced and reassembled, while brass buttons multiplied into impractical double rows, subverting their original utilitarian purpose.
In some cases there were juxtapositions between one design and the next: one jacket had extra long sleeves, another looked shrunk. Pockets, once regimented and orderly, were rearranged at unexpected angles or transformed into exaggerated cargo pockets that, large enough to rival the ones in Elsa Schiaparelli's "Cash and Carry" collection in the early '40s, spilled onto genderless skirts.
Slashes on a jacket, rather than conjuring images of wounded soldiers, evoked Renaissance tailoring tricks designed to reveal sumptuous fabrics beneath. Tailcoats sprouted from jackets, cheekily signaling that these were not uniforms for war but garments for happier times. Military fabrics collided with pinstripes, floral prints, and jacquard waistcoats, adding a formal or poetic and romantic layer to the narrative. Tartans, reminiscent of traditional kilts and of uniforms again, added a historical nod to rebellious self-expression.
Military tropes were turned inside out, transformed into a joyful moment of defiance: multi-zippered shorts hinted at punk irreverence, for example, rejecting conformity, while collaged fabrics and unexpected tailoring created a playful anarchy that dismantled the rigidity of militaria.
As the collection progressed, the disciplined greens gave way to vivid colored panels, destabilizing the formality of double-breasted silhouettes and introducing an element of play.
Even the classic army helmet was stripped of its utility, transformed into an exotic decorative object and covered with fabric as if it were a turban. Synthetic hair, and flowers also adorned them.
This interplay of flowers and war carried an undeniable resonance for those attuned to the Ukrainian conflict: in 2022, a brave Ukrainian woman confronted a Russian soldier, inviting him to put the sunflower seeds she offered him into his pockets, so that they would have bloomed when he died (the sunflower is Ukraine's national symbol).
But this collection wasn't a vision of dead soldiers sprouting flowers from their bodies, but a bold and unruly subversion of military codes, a sartorial rebellion, a two-finger salute to war. Kawakubo's collection didn't evoke a regiment marching to battle or a military parade; instead, it celebrated the irreverence of steadfast, unrelenting, and creative peace, resilience, and resistance.
Were these models joyful rebels and free-spirited hippies? Conscious objectors who had read Wilfred Owen and rejected "the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"? Who knows, maybe they were just representations of all of us, a wide humanity living in a permacrisis and fighting against adversities conscious that, while the oldest lie of war is still alive, so is the indomitable spirit to resist.
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