As the name asserts, Comme des Garçons Shirt deals mostly in shirting, leaving the sweeping, beyond-poplin men's statements to its more established older brother, Homme Plus. Which isn't at all to suggest that the slightly younger line is less dramatic or revelatory. It, too, has a unique place in the Comme universe, which has been steadily expanding since Rei Kawakubo founded the label in Japan in the early seventies.
It would be tempting to draw parallels between that psychedelic time and Shirt's hallucinogenic Spring collection, with its rousing kaleidoscope of cornea-scorching colors, radical 3-D bursts on shirtfronts, and intarsia knits every bit as busy as a Miró or a Calder. No, these men were not hippies, but perhaps former ravers with degrees in French literature and careers in art.
The challenging nature of Shirt's shirts was carefully explained on a tour of the collection with Kawakubo's husband and the company's president, Adrian Joffe, following the runway show at Comme's Place Vendôme headquarters. He pointed out every extreme silhouette and complex geometry. "This shirt might look like a normal blue office shirt, but really it is a cape," he said, revealing its double-take effect. "We worked with the artist Mike Perry," he added, in reference to the Brooklyn-based Pop artist with a taste for the delightfully puerile. "There are a lot of similarities between his work and the Comme des Garçons vision."
Sure, there were also mild—or milder—shirt options in soft blue and white with nary a kink to be found, save for a diagonal seam or random pocket, as well as a range of pants in safe solids and color-blocks. But once you've seen a rainbow-hued jabot with outrageously large ruffle swirls, can you ever go back?
