Every fashion house has its share of bloopers. Virtually no one makes the same type of error twice.

Unlike every fashion house, Comme des Garçons. Since its founding in Tokyo in 1969, this brand has been doing something that the majority of brands have been trying to steer clear of. Sure has made the world an uncomfortable place, that one has. At times it was just discomfort. At times, it was a bit too far. Not one incident, one wrong move, it’s not the Comme des Garcons controversy. This has been a thing going around for 40 years, 4 different scandals and a reluctance to play it safe. This is the complete information.

The 1981 Paris Debut: When Fashion Called It a Threat

It was 1981. Paris Fashion Week. It was Rei Kawakubo’s first fashion show in Europe and the audience were unsure whether to clap or walk out.

Almost all the clothing was black. Fabrics were distressed, frayed and left unfinished. Slices that were asymmetrical, and went against all the fashion world’s rules of proportions. Some holes in clothes were not considered an issue, but rather a seek of choice. It was an unfaltering assault against an industry built on magnificence and aspiration.

The French critics’ words were more a reflection of their own discomfort, than an assessment of the clothes. They called it “Hiroshima chic” and “post atomic” fashion. This is not a fashion issue, it’s provocation,” they said. Kawakubo read all the words, but did not utter a single word.

“So what if what you say is wrong, I do what is right for me,” she used to say. That’s her loudest yet in 1981 when she was quiet.

How that first debut forever changed style. The industry had to face a concept for the first time which didn’t take beauty lightly in fashion. Kawakubo forced it. But 1981 was just the beginning and fourteen years later, it was something much darker.

The Sleep Collection 1995: Fashion’s Holocaust Controversy

Certain fights die down. Then there is the Comme des Garcons Sleep collection of 1995, which was serious and so heart-wrenchingly painful that it never went away. It disappeared and most of the material traces of its presence disappeared as well.

In the collection were blue and white striped cotton lounging suits. Prints were made in large numbers and were printed on the hem of the fabric. There were boot prints on the clothes that were distressed. The looks were immediately and viscerally responded to when they hit the catwalk. The blue and white stripes obviously had the look of the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps. The numbers reflected the numbers which were tattooed on the Auschwitz inmates. The footprint markings indicated what the mind didn’t want to bring to its conclusion.

A formal condemnatory statement was issued by the World Jewish Congress. The attention of the media was almost exclusively on the three or four looks of the eighty that were presented that day. Kawakubo has denied that his piece was supposed to be reminiscent of a Holocaust. The concept for the piece collection was just sleep, that’s it, she said.

All the stock was pulled off the market. Nearly all the photos and records were taken out of circulation. It was one of the most talked about and least documented events in contemporary fashion history.

Was it an extreme painting for man? Was this simply a case of monumental ignorance? No satisfactory answer has ever been found to that question. Those in the world believed this was the time Comme des Garcons would face consequences of being overdone. It wasn’t that time. The next step was an indication of that.

No Black Models for 20 Years: The Diversity Crisis

There’s a type of responsibility that doesn’t result from a single determination, but several equal ones over the course of years, until they’re counted and public. The figure for Comme des Garcons was 20 in 2018.

Runway is 20 years old and doesn’t have a black colour. This was introduced by the fashion account Diet Prada and the fashion industry came to a standstill. It’s not like it should come as a surprise, but 20 years is correct. Twenty Years is a Policy” is a statement of policy.

Fashion director Gabriella Karefa-Johnson was candid about the cut’s absence and shares her views on the matter. I think it’s an attempt to try to make these things seem not as pedestrian, but as more art pieces at the same time and make them all OK in fashion at once, in one fell swoop.” It was correct and it was accepted. No, it wasn’t because of the absentees alone. The message of absence was much like this.

CDG Converse declined to make any official comment. With a controversy such as this in fashion, there is a lot yet to be said. The situation was exacerbated by the larger context. It was a case of all three brands – Prada, Gucci and Burberry – having racial issues at the same time. It was a time of reckoning for the industry – Comme des Garcons was smack dab in the middle of it, being out of the industry for 20 years.

Two years passed. The world moved on. Then Comme des Garcons went back to the catwalk in Paris and you couldn’t possibly turn a blind eye.

The Cornrow Wigs Incident 2020: Cultural Appropriation on the Runway

Comme des Garcons showed the Fall/Winter menswear collection at Paris Fashion Week on 17th January 2020. The show had even not ended yet that social media started going ablaze.

The white models were seen on the ramp wearing cornrows lace front wigs. In the same show, black models had their own natural hair. There was no subtle difference. It was not rationalized out with good intentions, but there and it was written.

This look of cultural appropriation was controversial from the get-go. Cornrows are very much a part of the black culture and serve as a way to protect styling and black culture. On white models, with black models beside, they indicated something, something out-of-place, something that fashion found appealing in aesthetics and that bodies it wanted to focus on.

Hairstylist Julien d’Ys has tried to explain his Instagram post, saying that his hairstyle was inspired by an “Egyptian prince. If I have offended or upset anyone, then I apologize as I did not intend to do so.” The explanation failed to take off. The claim was not too close to what was seen on the runway, critics noted.

Comme des Garçons sent a letter of apology to Dazed ‘deeply and sincerely sorry’. Two years after the infamous 20-year scandal that saw all models were white. No one could have been more obvious that this was no longer a coincidence. It required a more difficult and more authentic dialogue with the purpose of these beliefs for this brand.

What These Controversies Tell Us About Comme des Garcons

Four controversies. Four decades. One brand. There is a sequence in time which cannot be completely explained by any single theory.

These all had a prophetic quality to the creation of the brand they were conceived through artistic tendencies. This was my first time in Paris in 1981: it was a shock show to shock, not pretty. However, cornrow wigs for 2020 is about something else: Sleep collection, 20 years of racial exclusion. Sometimes, even without caring who it hurt the brand which was so caught up in its vision.

For Rei Kawakubo, this brand’s motto is discomfort is productive. That philosophy resulted in some of the most truly important work in fashion history. It also produced periods of discomfort which were unproductive. It was just harmful.

After all of the stories, the brand came out unscathed. It has the potential to increase its sales from about $130 million in 1999 to $450 million in 2024. It’s not the same thing to survive and have to account. What is learned by the lesson industry, is the lesson industry that must be learned by all creative industries. It’s not about the intent, it’s about the impact.

Conclusion 

Comme des Garcons was founded to put people just slightly out of their comfort zone. When it was uncomfortable, there were the doors to be opened. It was sometimes a matter of carelessness and a very costly coat.

This brand is in hot water. It isn’t a footnote. As much a part of the story as all of the collections that made it to the floor. To comprehend all of it is to soar through Comme des Garcons. The geniuses, and the failures. The sight and the blindness. One day moments that defined fashion forever and one that should have defined the brand forever.

We’ll see if they have it in the next collection.