If you caught some rave elements on any spring 2026 men’s runways, you can probably trace it back to the knockout Comme des Garçons Homme Plus collection for spring 2018, the birthplace of sequin-paved Bermudas and tropical prints spliced into plainer clothes.
It’s harder to divine the future impact of Rei Kawakubo’s latest effort, a meditation on tailoring, improbably thick and long black hair, and wonky, multibrim newsboy caps.
“Not suits, but suits” was her motto this season, with the corollary: “I had the feeling that we would really need to get someone powerful like a shaman to come to us to lead us to peace, love and fraternity.”
Settling in for her show Friday night in an airless, sweltering, tightly packed concrete venue, less lofty thoughts occurred like: “We could really use some air conditioning.”
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Once the models began stalking the narrow plywood runway, you had to forget your discomfort and pay close attention, for optical patterns disguised the bulges she had worked into her jackets, vests and coats — most frequently around the hips, but occasionally on the sleeves or where canvas chest pieces usually assure a flat surface.
Pants were uniformly skinny, but started accruing zippered openings, which burst forth with ruffles, some stiff, some fluttery.
The banded structures Kawakubo frequently employs in her women’s collections to build rounded volumes recurred here, along with godets, giving tailcoat airs to many of her tailored toppers. We’ve also seen the zippered pants and skirt-like shorts before.
Newer ideas included demonstrative, padded jacket lapels in contrasting fabrics and colors. These looked the most striking in white on cropped black tuxedo jackets, a style that also caught the eye a few hours earlier at the Dior show.
File the latter one under suits, and Kawakubo’s under “not suits.”