Of all the main characters in the Comme des Garçons clan, Tao Kurihara is the name we hear the least. Her label, Tao, closed down in 2011. She stopped performing in Paris and instead started working on the Comme des Garçons Tricot line. Then, in 2021, Tricot was renamed Tao with nothing more than a whisper and the designer’s eponymous label was revived. For the past few seasons, Tao has held off-schedule shows in Tokyo, presenting her curious finery to a small private audience in a windowless room on the seventh floor of CDG’s Aoyama headquarters. How wonderfully mysterious. And how bad Comme.
This latest outing, held early on a Wednesday morning, unfolded as a parade of white, punctuated by an inky splash in the middle. The non-color palette served to show off Kurihara’s mastery of texture, which is invariably a sight to behold. Ivory cotton and cream lace were folded like paper, gracefully pleated at the shoulders and waist, or crumpled into crumpled corsages that swirled around the body. Girly tops with broderie anglaise, along with white argyle, floral lace and quilting flowed over skirts and trapeze jackets, while pom-poms bobbed up and down on the toes of sneakers.
The cute and overtly feminine framework within which Tao operates – or “the coquette aesthetic” as it’s now categorized online – has been one of the most notable trends in women’s clothing lately. But Tao’s take on it feels different; she wields her bows and whistles in such a way that the effect is one of protection rather than decoration.
Unlike Rei Kawakubo, who called her collection this season Anger, Tao called hers Happiness. Very different emotions, but Tao clearly resembles the CDG matriarch with her knack for elevated concept clothing that, for the right people, will be perfectly marketable. Shortly after the show ended, Tao herself appeared on the floor below, dragging a half-dressed mannequin to get it ready for the showroom. She paused and said the message behind the collection was simple. “We all need a little more luck.” And then back to work.
