<p dir="ltr">From distorted silhouettes to garments built like sculpture, revisit the Comme des Garçons looks that have defined Rei Kawakubo’s singular approach to fashion.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Acclaimed Japanese designer <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/rei-kawakubo-history-comme-des-garcons">Rei Kawakubo</a> has made a career out of treating fashion a little differently. Since establishing <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/comme-des-garcons-auction-rare-pieces-photos-collection-prices-kerry-taylor-auctions">Comme des Garçons</a> in 1969, she has pushed clothing toward the strange, sculptural, and sometimes barely wearable, building one of fashion’s most recognizable avant-garde worlds in the process. Before any of that, Kawakubo studied literature and art at Keio University in Tokyo, worked in advertising at Japanese textile company Asahi Kasei, and moved into freelance styling in 1967. She founded Comme des Garçons two years later without formal training as a fashion designer. Ahead of Kawakubo’s Oct. 11 birthday, there is plenty of reason to return to the archive.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Unencumbered by the constraints of traditional tailoring, Kawakubo experimented with shape and form, creating deconstructed garments that often resemble art pieces more than clothes. One of her most famous collections is the Comme des Garçons Spring/Summer 1997 show—titled <em>Dress Meets Body, Body Meets Dress</em> and also known as the “lumps and bumps” collection—which featured clothing with exaggerated padded areas that created distorted silhouettes. The groundbreaking designer was also the subject of the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/rei-kawakubo"><em>Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between</em></a> exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017. While Kawakubo explores unconventional design through her runway collections, she has also had major commercial success with Comme des Garçons’ consumer-focused PLAY line and Dover Street Market’s retail stores.</p>

Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo of "Comme des GarÁons" backstage at her fashion show.

<p dir="ltr">That Spring/Summer 1997 collection remains one of the clearest examples of how far Kawakubo is willing to push a familiar garment. Padding appeared where the body normally curves, and then where it normally does not, turning dresses into uneven shapes that changed with every angle. The result became one of Comme des Garçons’ defining runway moments and a reminder that proportion has never been fixed territory for Kawakubo.</p>
<p dir="ltr">That same approach carries through the larger Comme des Garçons universe. A runway collection can lean deeply conceptual while PLAY offers a much more accessible entry into the label, and Dover Street Market has expanded Kawakubo’s influence beyond clothing altogether. Together, they have allowed the designer’s ideas to exist at very different scales without making the runway any less experimental.</p>
<p dir="ltr">More than 50 years after founding the label, Kawakubo’s archive still feels difficult to reduce to one silhouette, one fabric, or one period. Some looks distort the body, others hide it, and others turn clothing into something closer to an object. Below, <em>L’OFFICIEL</em> looks back at the Comme des Garçons designs that best capture Kawakubo’s most abstract side.</p>

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Spring/Summer 1997</h2>

Commes des Garçons Spring/Summer 1997.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Spring/Summer 2015</h2>

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Spring/Summer 2016</h2>

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Fall/Winter 2024</h2>

Comme des Garçons Fall 2024 ready-to-wear during Paris Fashion Week on March 2, 2024. Giovanni Giannoni/WWD via Getty Images.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Spring/Summer 2025</h2>

A look from the Comme des Garçons Spring/Summer 2025 runway during Paris Fashion Week on Sept. 28, 2024. Getty Images.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Spring/Summer 2026</h2>

A look from the Comme des Garçons Spring/Summer 2026 ready-to-wear collection during Paris Fashion Week on Oct. 4, 2025. Getty Images.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Fall/Winter&nbsp;2026</h2>

Rei Kawakubo's Most Avant-Garde Comme des Garçons Designs

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