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CommeDesGarcons 1996 Convertible Padded RedRoseJacquard & NavyCotton Skirt Cape

About the Item

In 1996, Japanese Junya Wantanabe made this sculptural red whorled-rose jacquard padded evening coat/jacket cape to convert to an equally stunning asymmetrical A-line or symmetrical narrow skirt, while he was being groomed in the mid-1990s as a Comme des Garcons designer with his own line curated by its founding designer/owner Rei Kawakubo. This optionally neck-worn garment is as transfiguring as the one by Wantanabe (b.1961) that TheMet museum featured on the cover of its 2001 publication "Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed". Like haute-couture, Wantanabe's innovative cutting, complex paneled construction, and reinforced stitches enable the two channeled pointy appendages of the garment to create unique draping in multiple ways and to be repeatedly retied to secure different silhouettes without deformity. When tied at the neck into a cocoon-like poncho, the top can be either a boatneck or a double v-neck. When otherwise tied at the waist as one of two skirt silhouettes, the waistline can be either horizontal or v-shaped. When zipped with hook fastening, the top opening of the garment for neck or waist is 25 inches. The womenswear size is a Japanese "S" for international-size small, which will easily fit a U.S.-size 6. As evidence of the designer's ingenious sourcing of synthetic and modern textiles, the woven rose pattern of the damask is both textured and shiny that results in reflections of warm colors ranging from cherry-red to brown. Rounding out the distinctly Japanese color-palette with a traditional material, matte navy cotton lining is visible at the edges of the top and bottom, while concealing padding that adds to the garment's volume and softens the drape. Recently dry-cleaned, it is ready for the buyer to wear.

Designer:

Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons

Brand:

Comme des Garçons

Dimensions:

Height: 32 in (81.28 cm)Marked Size: S (JP)

Style:

Garden of Time TheMet theme (In the Style Of)

Place of Origin:

Japan

Period:

1990-1999

Condition:

Wear consistent with age and use.

Seller Location:

Chicago, IL

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU3244218212932

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Comme des Garçons

Comme des Garçons is one of the world’s most innovative and trailblazing fashion brands, helmed by its inimitable founder, Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo (b. 1942), who has a penchant for breaking fashion and cultural norms. The only living designer apart from Yves Saint Laurent to have a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, Kawakubo has permanently changed fashion with designs that challenge traditional ideas of beauty with a creative and transgressive exuberance.

After studying art and literature at Keio University in Tokyo, Kawakubo worked as a freelance stylist before establishing her own label in 1969. Comme des Garçons — which is also known as CDG — officially launched in 1973, and Kawakubo opened her first store in Tokyo three years later. She has since been instrumental in pioneering many concepts now familiar in contemporary fashion.

One of Kawakubo's most iconic moves was her introduction of androgynous styles (Comme des Garçons means “like the boys” in French) with asymmetrical, twisted silhouettes that envelope the body. While she told the New York Times that the “basics of clothing lie in men’s fashion,” Kawakubo believes in the concept of humanness in clothes (she titled her spring 1995 show “Transcending Gender”).

In the 1970s, when color-blocking was the norm, Kawakubo stuck to her monochromatic color palette dominated by shades of black with uncompromising dedication, although with evocative and powerful use of red and white.

Comme des Garçons is also known for an often shocking take on fashion. Deconstructed tailoring, violently slashed fabric and sculptural shapes are some themes that run through the brand’s collections, but Kawakubo never explains the meaning of her conceptual pieces, which fall somewhere between art and fashion.

Designer Junya Watanabe, who worked alongside Kawakubo for nearly a decade, operates an atelier based within the Tokyo headquarters of Comme des Garçons, and he established a line under Kawakubo's label in the early 1990s. Since then, even though the brand has launched additional lines and more commercial offshoots like PLAY, known by the iconic heart motif with eyes, the premier men’s line Homme Plus and the multilabel Dover Street Market that opened in 2004, the essence of Comme des Garçons remains Kawakubo’s otherworldly and undefinable creations, which are impossible to ignore.

Find vintage Comme des Garçons shirts, jackets, day dresses and other clothing on 1stDibs.