Tweet
Well, after such a interesting menswear collection, this news...
Comme des Garcons partners with Louis Vuitton
Three-month store in Tokyo will feature six handbags in the LV monogram motif
By Suzy Menkes
Published: June 27, 2008
In an extraordinary collaboration, Louis Vuitton, the ultimate French luxury brand, and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons, the ultimate fashion rebel, will open a joint Tokyo store in September ? an ephemeral three-month space where six one-off bags, designed by Kawakubo in the LV monogram pattern, can be ordered by shoppers. Yves Carcelle, chairman and chief executive of Louis Vuitton, sitting front row at Kawakubo's show on Friday, said that he was approached by Comme and considers the project a fine way to celebrate 30 years since Vuitton first opened in Tokyo. Backstage, Kawakubo said that memory of her excitement at the arrival of Parisian luxury in Japan in 1978, resulted in this unlikely idea of the new design duo creating the store within the Comme des Garcons shop off Omotosando. For Comme acolytes, this move will be considered either as sleeping with the enemy ? or a brilliant and imaginative partnership. Kawakubo has re-designed the entire Comme des Garcons store on Kottodori, Omotesando for the Vuitton project. Carcelle says that LV is investing in the store, and that any financial profits will be divided. Although there have been many recent collaborations between "high" and "low" fashion, starting with Karl Lagerfeld's mini collection for the fast-fashion chain H&M, this meld is different because it involves a beacon of individuality with a company at the heart of corporate luxury management, as part of the LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton) group. Carcelle said that Marc Jacobs, artistic director of Louis Vuitton, admired Comme des Garcons and was an enthusiastic supporter of the idea of a joint venture. "It is impossible to overstate Rei Kawakubo's influence on modern fashion," Jacobs said in a prepared statement. "I find it wonderful to think that 30 years ago, this immense talent, someone who has inspired so many others, was inspired by Louis Vuitton." Kawakubo described her designs as "party" bags, promising multi-handles or two handles morphing into one. All will use the monogram toile, with the LV initials, and the offerings will hark back to the styles of 30 years when Vuitton made only bags and leather goods.
For Comme acolytes, the move will be considered either as sleeping with the enemy or as a brilliant and imaginative partnership. It could also be a riposte to Yohji Yamamoto's bag collaboration with Hermès last season. There was a touch of the spirit of that other Japanese fashion hero in Comme's men-in-skirts - crisp white cotton worn over narrow pants and under tailored jackets or shorter tunic dresses.
The show, with its slightly ethnic layering, was almost entirely in black and white, with its graphic quality enhanced by polka dots on inside-out jacket linings or on "petticoats" under full skirts. Flaming red hair or rakish hats finished off the look. But there were none of the customized LV bags with "kawaii," or cutesy, charms, to be seen.
The show was graceful and poetic, rather than one of Kawakubo's mold-breaking collections. But then she had already dropped her fashion collaboration bombshell, whose reverberations will be felt throughout the long weekend of Paris men's fashion.
Louis Vuitton's own show seemed to be on a fashion road to nowhere, although the designer Paul Helbers made all the right moves. He removed intrusive logos; gave an airy freedom to sportswear; and worked with a color palette that started bright, white and light, was then tinged with pastel - and finally broke into sunset orange before a nightfall of black.
What was the problem? The collection did not seem to grow from the DNA of Vuitton, a brand deeply associated with travel. After seeing in Milan's fashion week so much focus on modern materials and sartorial travel aids, Vuitton seemed to be focused on traditional luxury, with fabrics like cotton and silk for a trench coat, linen canvas for a vest and a champagne-colored suede top. The bags were luxurious and stylish and, as a replacement for the logo, shoes had a cradle of straps at the toes like a fancy spat - a subversive trend in footwear.
A gender journey from female to male was the focus at Yves Saint Laurent as the designer Stefano Pilati expressed the man/woman thing in six separate videos, while the clothes that looked supple on the screen were soft and sensual to touch in the still-life presentation. The final film showed a man breaking out from a circle of androgynous dancers, wearing a gilded jacket concocted with paillettes on tulle. Silk gazar, washed and softened, made a manly blouson, while a crèpe de chine blazer - decorated with Pilati's signature diaper pin - looked like it would ripple across a muscled torso.
But there was the show's problem. The videos and their actor-star, Jack Huston, set a contemporary art mood. But clothes dangling, as if in a gallery, did not make that vital journey from empty object to fashion in motion.
"It's going to be a sentimental journey," crooned the soundtrack, as models with neatly tailored shorts suits and old-style suitcases, rich with travel labels, came out at Junya Watanabe's show. But gingham check collars hinted at the transformation to come as the guys peeled off their jackets in front of a gilded mirror and reversed a sober navy to checks.
Hurrah for a designer who thinks not just about private jets but about coach class and the increasingly severe limits on baggage weight. We have seen this idea many times in fashion but Watanabe gave things a modern edge, with jaunty hats and, above all, the sense that each piece, reversed or not, was stylish.
The joyous ethnic mix for which Dries Van Noten is famous was abandoned this season - but by taking a different route the designer's collection of slim tailoring, from pin-thin trench to supple safari suit, was just as powerful. An outdoor set filled with all-white second-hand cars suggested a turn toward technology. And so there was. For behind the sheer black raincoat, worn by a model walking out in front of a slick 1960s Thunderbird to end the show, was fabric research that gave the classic style a jolt of modernity.
"Back to traditional menswear - natty, but not too chic," said Van Noten backstage, to explain how much work had gone into these seemingly simple clothes, where the prints were taken from neckties to create a mix of dots and make the current pajama craze credible.
Jean Paul Gaultier's collection seemed like a seasoned traveler taking his aesthetic to a familiar destination. It was cowboy country, with the "Ode to Billie Joe" and cowboy hats with curling brims worn above clothes that were graphic, rather than Big Country, in their streamlined, urban style.
Familiar Gaultier matelot stripes were reworked as fine sweaters under short-sleeved shirts or visible when the regular sleeves of a tailored suit were pushed up. The lonesome cowboy, Paris, Texas, theme lacked the sexual charge that would have brought an edgy spirit to the collection. But the faint echo of the 1970s brought a smattering of sweaters, as if inspired by Navajo Indians, and created a striking geometry in knitwear.
How exhilarating to find at Number (N)ine a time-travel collection that layered princely Victoriana clothes with American sportswear and Tokyo cool and made it seem utterly original. The designer Takahiro Miyashita had also explored cowboy country and returned to his favorite Nirvana in Kurt Cobain.
The result was a bewigged figure, with one eye bruised with makeup, and layers of light clothes, from poncho jackets to loosely tapered pants. Lacing, as on a sneaker, created shape; and straps at the back of pants allowed for a layered apron effect. It was unexpected, original and the way that Miyashita incorporated the prettiness of lace and floral pattern into his youthful silhouettes was beguiling. It was a fresh experience and a journey into the fashion unknown.
Suzy Menkes is fashion editor at the International Herald Tribune.
?
Comment