09 November 2012

Formative Looks: 90's CDG

Anyone who knows me even vaguely knows I am a CDG obsessee - the tag spans the very beginning of this blog, and the brand is one of the reasons I started blogging in the first place, started loving fashion in the first place. It constantly makes me think and it's what I fall back on whenever... well, whenever. It's one of my keys to survival, and the brand shapes my aesthetic and what I look for in other brands. I can not underscore my love for the brand, for Rei, for Junya, and for what they've given me. I thought I'd put together a memoriam of my favorite looks of CDG for my own personal pleasure here for future reference. CDG has been around for ages though, so I'm going to break it up into different posts / decades / eras etc. 

For something to be beautiful it doesn’t have to be pretty.”- Rei Kawakubo

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SS 1995. Rei described the feeling of this collection as this: “Looking for a future with a positive, vibrant energy.”

I enjoy the early era of CDG as the cluttered, learning process of Rei. It's kind of romantic? And romantic is not the first word I would say when I think about Rei....so I'm especially fond of her older collections because of it.


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SS 1996. This was probably one of the most memorable collections of CDG, and I love the campaign  images so much too. Somehow it's really peaceful despite being such a colorful collection? It's one of my favorite incarnations of the CDG woman, because it's so connected to other woman. I feel like it's important to view this girl connected to other girls. They're all on a different level than you. They're looking away from you, they're in their own rainbow world and it's peaceful and full of power you can't understand.


ss96campaign

The rest of the images in this series can be found here.


Comme des Garçons can never, by its nature, appeal to everyone. It would be the end of CDG if it ever did. We have to maintain the paradox of creation [that will never] be understood by everyone, and yet through its indirect power, we are able to continue.”- Rei Kawakubo

  

 Fall/Winter 1996. I like this one so much because it's an amalgamation of everything I'm currently loving! I like the rich, velvet fabrics but the fact they weren't interpreted in a baroque royalty kind of way. It's fresh. And J.W. Anderson reminds me a lot of this era in some ways.

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But my favorite... the true #1 formative collection for me ever of all time is SS97. It's everything. I did an homage here, my feelings haven't really changed from then.

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Vogue Paris, 1997 Comme des Garçons, Spring 1997
Spring/Summer 1998 is wonderful too. It's timeless, I see reiterations of the styling all of the time.

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