Comme Des Garçons AW25 Show Debrief
Our take on the Comme Des Garçons AW25 Show in Paris
Comme Des Garçons Show, Paris 8 March 2025
Art imitated life at Rei Kawakubo’s Comme Des Garçons AW25 show. With the exception of critic royalty Vanessa Friedman, Cathryn Horyn and Alexander Fury, the vast majority of guests were dressed head to toe in CDG’s signature sculptural, skirts – all doing their best to squeeze their spherical garments past each other along the narrow files of fold-down chairs as they searched for their allocated seat in the dark.
Comme Des Garçons Show, Paris 8 March 2025
The models had the same experience, gently bumping into each other like gorgeous gingham blimps as they navigated the runway – an issue admittedly not unique to this season. Kawakubo’s show notes however spoke to championing a ‘smallness’ both in the industry and in the world at large, moving away from vast global corporate entities powering an increasingly same-same fashion machine.
Set to a hypnotic soundtrack of Bulgarian folksong and chanting curated by friend of Comme Des Garçons @ACD3000, the uncharacteristically colourful collection seemed to draw from pivotal collections in the maison’s history, most noticeably the ‘Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body’ collection (also affectionately known as ‘Lumps and Bumps’) that turned the entire industry on its head by presenting a series of dresses bulging with enormous, growth-like lumps, challenging the notion of what fashion is for and why we wear what we wear.
Comme Des Garçons Show, Paris 8 March 2025
Thirty years later, this lumpy, bumpy concept still feels as subversive as ever. A total of 20 oversized structures, housing models whose bodies completely disappeared within them, made their way down the runway on Rue Auber last weekend. The pieces were made from layers upon layers upon layers of gingham, glen check, vischy and tartan fabrics (all, I was told later, designated as menswear fabrics) with extra sleeves tacked on anywhere you like. With garments this size, detail is often dwarfed by the sheer vastness of each artwork. Even so, it was hard to miss the little things - like the fricasse of the huge fringed hats as they shimmered under the lights, and the swinging braids of knotted cloth attached at the torso, bumping their way along the runway like labrador puppies.
Comme Des Garçons Show, Paris 8 March 2025
In the showroom, it was one the purest translations of runway to ready-to-wear that I’ve seen. Small lumpy, bumpy pillowy patches were transplanted on to every-day woollen knits to create vaguely Frankenstein-esque sweaters, fabulous in their just-a-bit-odd-ness. Turns out the same pinstripe fabrics that created those house-sized garments is also perfectly suited to soft tailored jackets – of which there were more than three perfect iterations. The lairy tartan was reworked into punky pleated skirts slashed open on one side, and there were racks of easy, drapey velour shirting in the same plush burgundies, papal purples and oranges that we saw on the runway.
Striking, curious and intellectually-stimulating garments-as-artworks are why the world loves Comme des Garçons, but the true test of a collection is its wearability. After all, beyond the runway the whole point is to make clothes that real people can wear.
Comme Des Garçons Show, Paris 8 March 2025
The verdict? Aside from a couple of brain-teasing shirts, almost every piece in the CDG AW25 collection can just be thrown on – no manual or stepladder required – and worked in with a very standard wardrobe. The statement pieces in this collection, primarily toned down versions of looks 1, 3, 9 and 20, but can be worn without feeling like you’re stepping on to the red carpet at the Met Gala. And the even more distilled variations of the collection in the Comme Des Garçons Comme Des Garçons line are a total treasure trove – including a healthy selection of those sculptural, spherical skirts that we’ll no doubt see on the sidelines next season.
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The first drop from this Comme Des Garçons AW25 collection will arrive in August 2025.
Check out the current collection from Comme Des Garçons here.