First came casual Fridays. Then the streetwear juggernaut. And then pandemic-induced WFH. Is it any wonder if it seemed like it was curtains for men’s tailored clothing?
On Friday in Paris, Rei Kawakubo literally transformed men’s tailored clothing into curtains, splitting the back of jackets and then gathering the fabric on both sides of the body with tiebacks.
On other jackets, she pitched armholes so far forward that sleeves hung down the front as mere decorative tubes, the arms set free. She also added to jackets an additional jacket as a masculine version of a cape-like Watteau back, or she joined two jackets at the hem, leaving one’s collar, lapels and sleeves to dangle down, creating a new, offbeat kind of tailcoat.
Sometimes all it took was a stiff white middy collar or backward bib to electrify black suits, or strands of synthetic hair threaded through armholes to give them an élan somewhere between glam and creepy.
Loud green palm prints did something magical to a relaxed jacket with matching sweater and Bermuda shorts. Sensational.
Kawakubo titled her latest Comme des Garçons Homme Plus collection “Beyond Reality,” offering as an explanation that “in order to find a new world, we have to go beyond reality.”
She certainly opened up a host of new tailoring possibilities worlds more daring than the prominent shoulders and flimsy fabrics that many other designers explored this European season.
Extraneous sleeves can be an invitation to ridicule, and here also were split, upside-down pants, the waistband and zippers lapping around the ankles. Curtains of faux greenery, like what Gilligan hacked his way through on that tropical island, appeared here and there as offbeat fringe.
And some of the derby shoes came as Siamese twins, a second toe-box jutting outward or layered on top.
Yet no matter how radical Kawakubo’s experimentations, they didn’t distract from her handsome proportions, luxurious fabrics — and the reality that guys still look fantastic in suits.
Source: WWD