Style zeigeist in Comme des Garcons Homme Plus Spring/Summer 2020 Paris. The brand collaborated with American painter Karl Benjamin’s estate this season.
Rei Kawakubo continued elevating classic shirts into veritable pieces of art for spring 2020, working with the estate of American artist Karl Benjamin and the Louis Stern Fine Arts gallery in Los Angeles on the Comme des Garçons Shirt collection.
Patchwork and printing techniques were used to re-create some of Benjamin’s paintings, which feature colorful, geometric elements.
Here, an Oxford shirt with dusky pink sleeves and collar featured vertical, asymmetric printed panels in the likes of yellow, light blue, green and cobalt. Another model, with a blue-and-white striped front, came with multihued printed shapes on the sleeves. Various versions of the intricate, eye-catching combinations were displayed, with up to 16 different screens needed for printing on just one shirt.
Likewise, patchworking could become highly involved, with as many as 23 different parts needed to be sewn together for one look. A shirt, worn with knee-length navy shorts, was comprised of materials with stripes of various widths and shades of blue, plus white fabric patches.
Colorblocking appeared on rainwear, in orange, mustard yellow, pink, red and light blue, for instance. While striped raincoats were worn over button-down shirts emblazoned with kaleidoscope swirls of geometric shapes and hues.
Kawakubo’s artistry gave yet another new, multidimensional spin on traditional daywear.
