Dear Shaded Viewers,
Comme des Garçons emerged yesterday from the shadows and scattering sunlight, with Rei Kawakubo presenting “AFTER THE DUST”: a meditation on the grace that erupts when perfection collapses. The collection unfolded with an urgency that felt almost elemental, raw yet hopeful—each piece bearing tangible evidence of its own undoing, as if the garments themselves were weathered survivors breathing in the aftermath of a storm.
This was not destruction for sorrow’s sake—it was Kawakubo’s poetic insistence that beauty persists precisely where fractures appear. Tattered edges, splayed seams, deconstructed tailoring—every look seemed to cradle the remains of something that had been, whispering of rebirth and the unexpected tenderness that blooms in ruins. Her silhouettes moved like spectral figures through white haze and soft, ashen light, their irregular forms casting shadows full of unanswered questions and fragile possibility.
A defining touch arrived at ground level: the Mexicana Charms boots. Precious Santiags—pointed, low-cut, striking in white and black—traced the runway, adorned with delicate, almost ceremonial charms that clinked softly with each step. These boots, a collaboration with @mexicanaboots, captured Kawakubo’s philosophy: beauty evolved through imperfection, resilience, and remembrance. The boots were talismans—memory made tangible, worn with pride by models who seemed, for a moment, transformed into nomads drifting between reckoning and radiance.
Comme des Garçons stands unchallenged as the season’s event horizon. Kawakubo’s work always transcends mere fashion; her shows are rituals in the architecture of feeling, reflections of the world not as it is, but as it could be, in hope’s battered afterglow. Paris paid silent tribute as her vision unfolded—not as a deity of dress, but as a keeper of faith in the beautiful aftermath.
Hair and make-up : Takeo Arai @hmaraitakeo
-Head Piece : Nobuki HIZUME (HIZUME) @hizume.official
-Music : Supervision/mix: Ugo Nardini (ADC303) @adc303
-Lighting : Thierry Dreyfus @eyesightgroup
Later,
Diane
