Highsnobiety Guide – Sneek Peak

The
COMME
des
GARÇONS
Family
Tree
326
Designer Jun Takahashi got his start
in 1993, opening up the store
NOWHERE in Japan’s Harajuku
neighborhood. His partner in the
store was Tomoaki “NIGO” Nagao,
who would go on to establish seminal
streetwear label A Bathing Ape.
Takahashi’s UNDERCOVER line flourished
in its early years, attracting attention
for his punk-inspired clothes
featuring subversive graphics and a
cut-apart appeal that channelled
Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm
McLaren’s Seditionaries label.
UNDERCOVER
UNDERCOVER’s graphics pulls inspiration
from bands like the Jesus
& Mary Chain and Joy Division, and
even stretches to sci-fi fantasy franchises
like Star Wars. One of his
earliest supporters was Rei
Kawakubo, who urged him to show
his collection at Paris Fashion Week.
When he made his Parisian runway
debut in 2002, Kawakubo sat in the
front row, bringing their mentor-protegé
relationship full circle.
After graduating from Bunka Fashion
College in 1984, Junya Watanabe
got his first job at COMME des
GARÇONS as a pattern cutter and
apprentice pattern maker. He impressed
Kawakubo so much that he
was promoted to a proper design
position, and granted his own label
in 1992. He debuted his first menswear
collection, Junya Watanabe
MAN in 2001, and for a time was also
the head designer of the COMME
des GARÇONS Homme line.
Junya Watanabe
The Tokyo fashion
brand was
instrumental
in putting Japanese
fashion on the map
thanks to designer
Rei Kawakubo’s
meticulous attentionto-
detail and avantgarde
sensibilities.
Under her tutelage,
her and her company
have inspired and
empowered a new
generation of forwardthinking
designers.
Fashion runs in Chitose Abe’s family—her
mother was a seamstress.
In 1991, she began working on Junya
Watanabe’s collection at COMME
des GARÇONS. Eight years later,
she started her own fashion line, sacai.
The label is known for mixing
elegant patterns with rugged fabrications
pulled from the world of
menswear, like buffalo plaid flannel,
various tartans, and military-inspired
nylon.
sacai
In 2015, she collaborated with Nike
on two womenswear capsule collections
of activewear and sneakers
for the sportswear company’s highend
label, NikeLab. Abe’s penchant
for fabric mixing manifested in
sporty skirts made of contrasting
jersey and mesh fabric, and minimal
renditions of the Air Max 90
and Dunk sneakers, paring down
the details down to the eyelets—
opting for a snug elastic band
around the tongue that secured it
to the foot. The result was a label
that spoke to a rising class of discerning
female sneakerheads, who
appreciated Abe’s approach to
sportswear, although a good number
of men also gravitated towards
Abe’s collaborative kicks, too.
Moscovian Gosha Rubchinskiy initially
began his fashion career in the
world of hairstyling and makeup. In
2008 he started his eponymous line
initially consisting of cheap T-shirts
and embroidered Fruit of the Loom
sweatshirts, embodying the hardscrabble
spirit of streetwear.
Gosha Rubchinskiy
In 2010, while his rising label was
experiencing troubles with production,
Adrian Joffe, the president of
COMME des GARÇONS and retailer
Dover Street Market, was impressed
with the line, and eventually
offered to produce it and bring
Rubchinskiy’s label under the CDG
umbrella, where it remains today.
Known for his Post-Soviet aesthetic
drawing heavily on Russian ‘90s
subculture, he started a trend towards
Cyrillic typeface logos and
bootleg-inspired garments. The lofi/hi-fi
appeal of his elevated streetwear
has attracted a global fanbase
of youth.
Watanabe is known for his reinterpretation
of workwear tropes and
classic menswear silhouettes. His
ability to re-contextualize heritage
workwear and labels like Levi’s,
Carhartt, and The North Face injects
a newfound sense of excitement
into tried-and-true brands. In
many ways, his contributions to
men’s fashion have re-energized the
genre much in the same way CDG
designer Rei Kawakubo revolutionized
notions of womenswear. 327