Comme Moment

This is a far more substantial post involving the word 'Comme' in the post title.  Well, actually you're probably wondering why it's even here.  It seems like the mind numbling obvious to devote a few paragraphs banging on about how provocative and significant Comme des Garcons is.  As it happens, this S/S 12 show back in October was my first Comme des Garcons show I ever saw in person.  There's no use.  I'm not going to be all blas√© about it.  Yes, I do see a lot of shows and whilst I don't breathlessly exclaim about every one of them unless absolutely necessary, there's no use being coy about the fact that seeing a Comme show is a real sensory experience, something that is becoming rare in fashion.  Somehow the access to seeing Comme has eluded me up until last October and frankly I'm not going to allow this vivid moment to be washed over with a 'So what?' attitude.  I'm not a staple 'frower' or a big wig fashion editor.  These things actually do get me geekily excited and that feeling just before the curtain rises in the theatre or ballet was almost palpable at the show held at Palais de la Femmes, a restored Salvation Army refuge for women.

After the show, Alex Fury of SHOWstudio said "What a great first Comme show to see…" and whilst you can rely on Comme to puzzle you or make you think, not every one of them touches you and has your mind throbbing with pyro-poetics like this S/S 12 ode to white did.  The symbolism at hand was almost so heavy handed that you could go on and on in dissecting every gesture and silhouette and probably never get to the bottom of is real meaning.  I don't mind falling into that vaguely signature Rei Kawakubo trap though.  There are very few instances where you can really read deep into a fashion show because the final stumbling block is that the goal is of course to sell the stuff.  This is the case for Comme too but it takes a lot of restraint to stop yourself from reading deep especially with a white-out show such as this one. 

The choice of white itself is a potent message.  It's the colour to accompany you through the main rites of passage, seen in a new born's christening robe, a woman's wedding dress and then on robes and flowers in the hair when mourning in the Far East.  This double edged sword of a colour makes it impossible to merely view these ensembles as Comme des Garcons does Wedding.  Even worse to try and tie it to the significant nuptial events of last year. 

The bows are big and cloying and at times bind the hands together.  The clusters of flowers crowd the body rather than adorning it.  The blow-up and deliberately cartoonish headpieces and the wispy white obscure the face and weight them down rather than celebrating their visage.  Miss Havisham's doomed jilted bride fate is just one image that comes to mind as happiness and sadness come together in an emotive parade made all the more stately by the references to classical couture shapes.  Skirts full.  Sleeves billowing and weighty.  Volumes that went from ballgown to papal depending on how you see the world.  The construction of a cage is perhaps a literal note too far (although longtime Style Bubble readers will know my affections for a frill-edged Comme cage…) but perhaps necessary to ensure that the point isn't that we just coo at these ceremonial gowns and sigh over their beauty.  I did do that at the very end but after cooing, came pondering and the combination of the two was enough to make me skip down the street back to my apartment and begin to process it all, savouring it and really enjoying  the memories of it, beyond the clothes.   

There was so much to question in relation to the ideals of achievement in womenhood.  We can mock the modern culture of mahussive full-blown weddings and then decipher the perceived values of marriage.  We can discuss femininity and question what that actually means and what expectations society imposes (there was SO much of that this season that I'm half expecting scholarly papers from anthropologists to come out centering around the S/S 12 shows).  Then we can ask whether these sartorial symbols of femininity – the Princess bows, the abundance of florals, the masses of fabric and the white lace – are holding women back or empowering them?  I'm inclined to go with the latter.