“If I did not know that the world was under the influence of a tragic pandemic, I would think that the entrance ceremony for the mini-show of Comme Des Garçons Homme Plus Spring Summer 2021 was an integral part of the design spirit of the clothes I was about to see.”
Upon special invitation, A Magazine contributor Noam Levinger joined a small group of local journalists in Tokyo on July 28th for Rei Kawakubo’s presentation of her SS 2021 collection for Comme Des Garçons Homme Plus, the brand’s mainline men’s collection established in 1984. The Israeli photographer recounts his experience of this unprecedented Tokyo presentation at Comme Des Garçons HQ.
“I was greeted by the Comme Des Garçons team on the ground floor of their head office in Tokyo with a small bow and a big spray of alcohol. Up on the 7th floor, where the presentation took place, the company’s employees handed me a plastic face mask to cover my face, before showing me my seat. In a room with about 50 spectators, the Japanese did their best to maintain strict social distancing rules. The windows were open to a hot and humid Tokyo summer’s day. There was something very modest and not glittering about what’s going on, even though some of the people in the room, all journalists, were dressed in their best CDG clothes.