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.
Comme Des Garçons No.13 Chair Rei Kawakubo
By Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons
Located in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Comme des garçons no.13 chair. Iconic CDG chair designed by Rei Kawakubo in the 80s. This piece is special black model in 2021 for Comme des Garcons special event. Sold as make to or...
Steel
Comme Des Garçons No.8 Chair Rei Kawakubo
By Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons
Located in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Comme des garçons no.8 chair. Iconic CDG chair designed by Rei Kawakubo in the 80s. This black model is produced in 2019 for Comme des Garcons special event. Condition is never use...
Steel
Comme Des Garçons No.7 Chair Rei Kawakubo
By Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons
Located in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Comme des garçons no.7 chair. Iconic CDG chair designed by Rei Kawakubo in the 80s. This black model is produced in 2019 for Comme des Garcons special event. Condition is never use...
Steel
Bauhaus chair no.811 by Josef Hoffmann
By Josef Hoffmann, Thonet
Located in Banská Štiavnica, SK
Bauhaus chair no.811 by Josef Hoffmann for Thonet in very nice original condition with signs of use.
Rattan, Beech, Bentwood
Bentwood chair by Thonet no.54
By Thonet
Located in Banská Štiavnica, SK
Bentwood chair by Thonet no.54. Professionally stained and repolished.
Beech, Bentwood
Jean Prouvé ‘Antony’ Chair, Model No. 356
Located in New York, NY
Jean Prouvé was a visionary French designer and engineer whose work combined industrial innovation with refined simplicity. Among his celebrated designs is the ‘Antony’ Chair, Model ...
Steel
Mathias Chair 'No armrest'
By mob estudio
Located in Mexico City, MX
With a hard wood frame, upholstered seating and thick leather back, our Mathias chair plays a game of positive and negative spaces created by the various plans of diverse materials. ...
Leather, Fabric, Walnut
Secession Desk Chair No. 25 by Thonet
By Thonet, August Thonet
Located in Banská Štiavnica, SK
Secession desk chair no. 25 by Thonet with new handmade rattan seat professionally stained and repolished.
Rattan, Bentwood
Dining Chairs No.81 by Thonet Debrecsen
By Thonet
Located in Banská Štiavnica, SK
Dining chairs no.81 by Thonet Debrecsen executed in 1980s. Excellent original condition.
Fabric, Bentwood
Rare vintage Rei Kawakubo n°7 chair for Comme des Garçons
By Rei Kawakubo
Located in PARIS, FR
Rei Kawakubo Chair No. 7, ca. 1987 Comme des Garçons Edition, Japan This design was reissued in 2019 by Comme des Garçons in an all-black version but this one is the original one fr...
Steel
Wood Clay Chair No.2 by Sigve Knutson
By Sigve Knutson
Located in Pireaus-Athens, Greece
Working intuitively with hands-on techniques and a wide range of materials, young Norwegian designer Sigve Knutson creates objects that question contemporary mass-produced design. After presenting the critically acclaimed solo project Drawn to Production with Carwan Gallery during Milan Design Week in 2017, Knutson presents a new solo show at the gallery with works created in the past five years — including new objects inspired by the local context of Piraeus and created specially for the exhibition. Entitled Assembly, the exhibition explores the freehand, improvisatory approach that is part of Knutson’s practice, which is often driven by the pure joy of putting things together without planning or designing anything in advance. Each object he creates is unique and results from a process led by experimentation and an intuitive use of tools, to create archetypal forms that, in the designer’s own words, display different “gradients of functionality”. Abstract wood columns thus coexist in his work with playfully stacked shelves...
Polystyrene, Wood
Thonet dining chair no.103
By Thonet
Located in Banská Štiavnica, SK
Thonet dining chair no.103. Professionally stained and repolished.
Rattan, Beech, Bentwood
Bentwood dining chair no.19 by Thonet
By Thonet
Located in Banská Štiavnica, SK
Bentwood dining chair no.19 by Thonet. Professionally stained and repolished.
Rattan, Beech, Bentwood
1940s Thonet Beech Chair no. 57, Czechoslovakia
By Thonet
Located in Praha, CZ
- partly refurbished - some signs of use - sturdy and stable - Height of seat 47
Wood, Beech
Bentwood dining chair no.228 by Thonet
By Thonet
Located in Banská Štiavnica, SK
Bentwood dining chair no.228 by Thonet. Professionally stained and repolished.
Beech, Bentwood
Comme Des Garçons No.2 Chair kuramata vase, and clock
By Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo
Located in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Comme des garçons no.2 chair. Rei Kawakubo designed. New old stock in mint condition.
Steel
Comme Des Garçons No.2 Chair Rei Kawakubo
By Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo
Located in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Comme des garçons no.2 chair. Rei Kawakubo designed. New old stock in mint condition.
Steel
Comme Des Garçons No.2 Chair Rei Kawakubo
By Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo
Located in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Comme des garçons no.2 chair. Rei Kawakubo designed. New old stock in mint condition.
Steel