January 27, 2006

Junked red theater seats were stacked in the gloom, Tom Waits intoned a creepy poem, and the atmosphere was generally pregnant with menace—then out of the darkness ambled a Teddy Boy, the original rock 'n' roll rebel. Drape jacket, bolero tie, hair swept back in a D.A., two-tone brothel creepers…in other words, every mother's nightmare in the 1950s. It was that rebellious attitude Rei Kawakubo was keen to tap for her latest Comme des Garçons collection. "Life lived to the fullest," was the way her husband and business partner Adrian Joffe phrased it.

The Ted isn't the most original fashion influence perhaps, but there was a new appeal in the oversized proportions of broad-shouldered jackets that dropped to mid-thigh, and voluminous pleated trousers (if only because the shrunken silhouette's dominance has become so numbing). Drapes came single- and double-breasted, in pinstripes, panne velvet, or sparkling like a bandleader's. Some were decorated with strips of fabric that also traced the leg of the accompanying trousers.

Fringing on shirts and jackets had the flavor of a C&W bad boy; the hand formation known as the devil's horns, printed on another shirt, added a hint of heavy metal. So did the barbed wire and chain-link fence prints. The models, meanwhile, moved at a snail's pace, a development we've seen several times this season, leading one adroit fashion observer to remark that "slow walking is the new sashay."

— Tim Blanks