By Louise Daniel
The Comme des Garçons universe continues to serve as a beacon of raw, untouchable hope in the fashion industry. Rei Kawakubo’s lifelong pursuit of breaking, molding, and redefining the idea of beauty has led her down a path only traveled by cultural icons with an unyielding avant-garde spirit. Kawakubo still refuses to yield. For Comme des Garçons Spring/Summer 2026, the shock factor that once defined her earlier work took on a more poetic resonance. Instead, the palette took on a lighter, more delicate tone—as if mirroring the state of the world and our collective need for kindness and compassion. As Kawakubo expressed in her notes, “I believe in the positiveness and the value that can be born from the damaging of perfect things.” Each ensemble in her 24-look collection permeated this ethos through concept, form, and ease.
Perfection Was Never The Point
The foundation of the CDG universe was never about finality—it is, and always has been, about evolution. Much like Kawakubo’s endless desire to deconstruct the traditional silhouette, her guiding principle remains abstraction and curiosity. She refuses to chase perfection. In fact, the unconventional shapes and constructions of her garments elevate each look into a walking sculpture. Materiality knows no limits in the CDG world. This season, humble textiles such as burlap, canvas, and calico were exalted on the runway—stripped of hierarchy, made sublime through intention.
Distortion also became a defining language in this collection, embodying Kawakubo’s anti-perfectionist stance. The headpieces, created in collaboration with Nobuki Hizume, were reimagined into warped, bent, and twisted forms, their deliberate wrinkles becoming beautiful scars of imperfection. They were complemented by the pastel, cotton-candy-like hairstyles crafted by Takeo Arai. Every detail is a playful act of defiance that harmonizes with the subtle disorder of the silhouettes.
Each layered ensemble resembled a collage of garments—fragments of dresses, jackets, and suits patched together with sensitivity. Contrasting materials and colors added rhythm and tension: lace layered over burlap, soft hues juxtaposed with darker tones, asymmetry used not to disrupt, but to create balance. Each look carried an intentional gentleness, as if the strong silhouettes were softened by empathy.
Comme Des Garçons: A Call For Positivity
It is no secret that Kawakubo has long used the runway as her chosen medium of rebellion. Comme des Garçons does not exist in a vacuum—and neither does the fashion industry she continues to challenge. Through her singular vision, Kawakubo once again translates rebellion into optimism, illustrating how resilience can emerge from the ruins of perfection. She reminds us that beauty can be found in the debris, that damage itself can hold poetic value. In times of global unrest, art becomes a form of resistance—and within constraint, creation blossoms. A Comme des Garçons collection, in its truest sense, remains a beacon of hope. It invites us to view creation as an act of healing—a quiet insistence that even within disorder, there is light.
Commes des Garçons Spring/Summer 2026: Looks 2, 3, 5, 10, 13, 16, 22 (Images courtesy of Comme des Garçons)
