Comme des Garçons fans, rejoice – a newly opened store at number 56 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris provides a four-storey European outpost for the Rei Kawakubo-led brand, featuring lines previously only available in Japan.
The gleaming 800 sq m store is on the same street as the brand’s previous Paris location, which was housed in a courtyard set back from the famous luxury shopping street. The new location is street-facing, cementing the 1969-founded brand – which now serves as an umbrella for other labels, including Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya, alongside the international Dover Street Market stores – as one of fashion’s major international players.
‘Explore and experiment’: inside Comme des Garçons Paris
The typically conceptual retail space centres on vast white columnar displays which house Comme des Garçons’ various collections and lines – including Homme Plus, Shirt, Girl and Parfums, among others, as well as offerings from Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya. Sleek red and white walls intersect the space, which like the brand’s other outposts is designed for an explorative experience, whereby items are waiting to be discovered amid a twisting layout.
The store will also stock Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons furniture line, reissued for the first time in nearly three decades. The initial offering comprises three 1987-designed metal chairs, which are exclusive to the location (it will be the only place in the world where the furniture line will be available for purchase). The designer’s various pieces of furniture have become much-coveted collector’s items over the years; in 2017, a selection went on display at Didier Courbot’s A1043 gallery in Paris.
‘This is furniture that was designed around the idea of transit,’ he told Wallpaper* at the time. ‘[Kawakubo] thought of it as temporary furniture and I love that idea – that you might sit, but only for five minutes. There’s this idea of movement.’
The store, which is designed by Kawakubo herself alongside the Comme de Garçons team, is around 50 per cent bigger than the previous Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré location and provides a precursor of sorts to the brand’s next project – a Paris Dover Street Market outpost in the city’s Marais district, following locations in Tokyo, London, New York, Beijing and Los Angeles. It is set to open in early 2024.
For now, Dover Street Market’s presence in Paris consists a dedicated ’Parfums’ store on Bis Rue Elzévir in the 3rd arrondissement which opened in 2019, housing not only Comme des Garçons vast range of fragrances but also beauty and scents from brands including Byredo, Costa Brazil and Thom Browne.
Comme des Garçons, 56 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, is open now.
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