Comme des Garçons A/W 2014

Knitwear is having a particularly bright moment for Winter, but so far no one has tackled it with as much imagination or fantasy as Rei Kawakubo. That's the Rei way, of course, but it is still a scintillating experience every time we sit down to watch her mastery unfold on the runway. In a way, this season's exercise picked up from where she let off for Spring, with intriguing, organic forms that seemed as though they were made from knots of inflated material. But this time she used dense, woolly knitwear. Though there were no inner tubes this time round, we did get a walking human igloo and a tent-like abode with the models' printed Lycra legs and a flash of spangled sequin pants carrying it down the runway. All of this was brilliantly illuminated by an intricate lighting project that swung down over the runway on cables, designed by frequent Comme collaborator, Thierry Dreyfus. Kawakubo often employed what looked liked stuffed knee socks to create twisted structures around the body; sometimes so intricate they looked like floating rafts. Alternatively, she hung enormous strands of knitted braiding and cable off the models' shoulders. Instead of a so-called daddy long-legs, we were confronted with a mommy long-arms: a magnificent creature that sprung from the exceptionally bright mind of Rei Kawakubo.