>> Comme des Garçons for H&M – a comment

The buzz was that of all fashion happenings – a queue of it-bags-clad girls at the door, that tingle of anticipation in the air, champagne and canapés, a dj-set, and PR girls running around everywhere and guarding the goodie bags with a broad but fierce this-is-not-for-you smile on their faces (the bags only contained a – very heavy! – copy of GQ and a 30ml bottle of the new H&M+Comme des Carçons fragrance, I really don’t know what the fuss was about). The Comme des Carçons for H&M collection was being unveiled at London flagship store in Regent Street and, short of limoes and a red carpet, the setting was that of a big event. And there we were:

And there we were, although I wasn’t really feeling the hype. Like I was saying in the days running up to the presentation, I wasn’t too excited about the collection. I thought that, apart from a couple of quirky jackets, the designs weren’t very interesting, and the polka dot print absolutely anonymous and, frankly, boring. I also said mine was just an opinion formed on the sole basis of the preview press pictures, and that I was hoping to be proved wrong when I’d finally touch and feel the garments first hand. I’m afraid I’m going to have to say I wasn’t proved wrong at all…

As the much-awaited frilly coat/dress, considered to be the strong point of the collection, was nowhere to be found (and I did get there very early on), I went straight to the jackets. Oh, what disappointment. The fitting was weird and totally unflattering, the trimmings cheap, and the material thick and rough. All in all, unpleasant to the eye as well as to the touch. It may be argued that what I call “weird fitting” is merely the result of Rei Kawakubo’s unusual designs, and the trimmings are cheap because it is an H&M production. To which I would respond that the greatness of CdG is to create the most complicated design and still deliver immaculate shape, whereas it looks here that to put together a mass-produced collection for a giant retailer they compromised on everything, from shape to fabric to detail.

I tried on the pleated skirt, and what was its cool feature, the ‘detached’ pleat on the left, actually turned out to be its main fault, as it sat right on the hip, adding volume to the waistline – as we know, still a major deterrent factor for most girls, despite the trend for voluminous skirts this winter. To be perfectly honest, by this point I’d already seen enough, and I didn’t even try to find some trousers to comment on and, needless to say, I steered clear of the polka dots.

The only good piece I found was the wallet – which incidentally is simply an adaptation of a longtime CdG classic. I then wonder: what exactly was the point for this collaboration? I can see the marketing benefits for H&M, but to me this was some lazy output which didn’t quite live up to the amazing potential it might have developed. CdG has always been a name for few, and in my opinion so it should have stayed.

[all pictures by blogagog]