“To hell with war.”
Rei Kawakubo made it feel almost redundant to expend any more words on describing her collection after hearing that. She’d just put us through the emotional wringer by confronting the reality that young boys and men are being called up for army service, being sent to kill or be killed by countries across the world. Or living in fear that they might.
It’s hard to imagine another designer who’d dare show a ‘military’ collection right now. Fashion is afraid of skating on thin ice. But Kawakubo designs straight from her mind, and she did not self-censor. And in any case, her position was very clear: her young Comme soldiers are conscientious objectors, peaceniks. This was a raggle-taggle band gone AWOL, metal hats self-decorated with flowers or ridiculously wrapped in fancy fabrics.
Their clothes were also not exactly what would pass muster on a military parade. Parts of deconstructed field jackets, brass-buttoned army officer’s uniforms, and other bits and pieces of militaria were collaged together to form 34 different configurations. At some point, there was tartan—not a deviation, but a reminder that the kilt is also part of the traditional paraphernalia of Scottish regiments.
It wouldn’t be Kawakubo if there wasn’t a reference somewhere to punk as a rebellious force. Sure enough, a couple of multi-zipped shorts appeared near the end of the show. One man’s peace-and-love flowers is another man’s punk. They both amount to the same thing Kawakubo is constantly pointing towards: resistance.
