Take a walk around Omotesando early on a weekday morning and you’ll spot them. Dressed in their unmistakable finery—pouffy skirts, pearl-buttoned suits, and chunky sneakers—they slowly converge in the streets, totally distinct from the drearily dressed salarymen and women also on their way to work. The destination of these unique but uniformly stylish disciples is the same: the Comme des Garçons office in Aoyama. This is the comme-ute.
It is the singular experience of inadvertently joining the Comme staff on their way to work that provides the preamble to Tao Kurihara’s 9am runway shows, which take place each season in a dark concrete room on the seventh floor of the brand’s HQ. That Tao’s shows happen here, in the inner sanctum of CDG, feels right. The designer is a relatively hidden component of the stable, being that she does not show in Paris like Kei Ninomiya or Junya Watanabe. Of all the senior designers in the company, Tao’s aesthetic sits closest to the main line—yet it remains distinctly her own, a fearlessly whimsical force that is hard to define but easy to recognize.
This season Kurihara set herself the challenge of using materials she had never used before (fake leather, metallic fabrics, sequins). She called the collection ‘Black and Gold,’ and so it unfolded: a troupe of glossy black, paneled skirts and floral embroidered vests, broken up by flashes of white in the button-up shirts and white T-shirt sleeves, and then subtle glints of gold in the skirts and Mary Janes.
After the black and gold came a sudden shift to deconstructed scarlet velvet and a dash of plaid, plus some silver and gold comb jewelry—a collaboration with comb artisan Lovechrome. Next, a brief but lavish explosion of baroque prints and gold-splattered, chocolate-colored tulle that was tied in chaotic knots across the torso, before a final return to gold, most strikingly in the tiered ruffled skirts that were as thin and delicate-looking as gold leaf. In explanation, the characteristically brief show notes read: “A world that shines brightly in the darkness.”
So what is that world all about, and where did the narrative come from? The ornate prints, white ruffles, and Mozart-esque wigs were, surely, a reference to rococo menswear? “Not at all!” trilled Kurihara happily after the show. “If that came through, it was completely unconscious.” The red? “I thought the collection needed it.” And what did you want to convey? “I wanted to create something that would make people think, ‘Oh!’”
In that purity of approach lies potent and refreshing creativity; you can’t imagine Kurihara would tolerate the demands of a merchandiser or a marketing department to make her clothes more commercial, and yet they are perfectly wearable. Come autumn, Tao fans in Omotesando and beyond will don those golden skirts and floral-embossed coats on their own morning commutes—each one a little world, shining brightly in the darkness.
AloJapan.com