Rei Kawakubo presented her Spring-Summer 2027 collection for COMME des GARÇONS HOMME PLUS as a two-act drama titled “If The War Were To End,” staged in Paris on Friday. The show opened in a mood of somber restraint before pivoting into a riot of candy-colored camouflage and subversive tailoring that suggested joy as an act of defiance.
The first act was all black—layered, asymmetrical, wrapped. Models emerged in elongated tunics and draped trousers that obscured the body, their faces partially hidden by veiled headpieces. It was Kawakubo’s familiar language of controlled chaos, rendered in wool, cotton, and bonded jersey.
Then the palette shifted. The second act detonated into electric pinks, acid yellows, and seafoam greens. Camouflage patterns were printed in impossible colors, reimagined not as military utility but as a kind of celebratory plumage. The clothes became looser, more playful—jackets cut with exaggerated proportions, trousers that pooled around the ankle.
The collection’s title was both provocative and deeply sincere. Kawakubo has never been one for literal commentary, but the arc from darkness to light, from concealment to expression, felt like a meditation on what fashion can offer in uncertain times: not escape, but a method of processing.
