A Trench Coat That Remembers Every War It Wasn’t Worn In – Comme des Garçons’ Haunting Elegance
Fashion is often viewed as a celebration of the nowa momentary vision captured in fabric, silhouette, and style. But for Rei Kawakubo and her revolutionary label Comme des Garons, fashion is more than aesthetics or trend; it is a space for confrontation, memory, and philosophical reflection. In one of the labels most enigmatic and thought-provoking creations, we encounter an object so loaded with implication it almost feels alive: a trench coat that remembers every war it wasnt worn in.
This garment, paradoxical and poetic in its conception, encapsulates Kawakubos ethos. It is not just clothing; it is narrative. It is history. It is ghost.
The Trench Coat as a Symbol
The trench coat, in the popular imagination, is deeply embedded in 20th-century conflict. Born in the muddy battlefields of World War I and solidified as a masculine symbol of the World War II soldier, spy, or fugitive, it has long stood as an icon of resilience and uniformity. Over the decades, it has become both fashionable and functionaladopted by civilians, worn in noir films, and forever linked with ideas of stoicism and survival.
However, Comme des Garons reimagines this archetype. This isnt a trench coat that has seen war; rather, it mourns the ones it never witnessed. It carries the burden of absence. It is embroidered not with medals but with imagined memories, speculative griefs, and the weight of unfulfilled destiny. Its an item of clothing turned memorial, dressed not in valor but in the haunting stillness of might-have-beens.
Fashion as a Memorial
Rei Kawakubos work has long defied categorization. From her "lumps and bumps" collections to sculptural gowns that question the very idea of the human form, she has never merely designed clothing. She curates experiences. And this trench coat is no different.
In refusing to be worn in war, the coat becomes an anti-uniform. It critiques the very systems that once relied on such garments to suppress individuality and serve empire. This piece doesnt glorify violence or duty. Instead, it whispers of the countless anonymous lives lost, the cities never rebuilt, the futures destroyed before they could begin. It is almost as though the coat has seen all of it, yet none of it. Like a ghost soldier denied enlistment, it walks quietly through history with nothing but empathy as its armor.
Constructing Absence
What does it mean to design absence? Kawakubo often answers this question with distortion. The trench coat in question isnt cut to flatter. It is oversized, heavy, and wrinkled in places where traditional tailoring seeks sleekness. The fabric might seem worn even if it's new, and the pockets, epaulettes, and lapels are exaggerated or abstracted, hinting at function but denying it.
This is fashion that refuses to serve in a conventional sense. It doesnt aim to clothe the body in elegance but to challenge the bodys very place in the world. By embracing the voidthe gaps between purpose and useComme des Garons suggests that memory isnt found in what a garment does, but in what it holds back. This coat remembers not through action but omission. Its a chronicle of missed moments.
A Garment of Political Resistance
At a time when fashion is often aligned with rapid consumption and commercial excess, Comme des Garons stands as a stark outlier. This trench coat is not market-driven. Its not sellable in the conventional sense. It refuses to be reduced to a commodity. Instead, it operates in the realm of conceptual resistance.
In remembering every war it wasnt worn in, the coat becomes a subtle act of defiance. It refuses militarism. It denies nationalism. It mourns the cyclical brutality of conflict not through slogans or slogans but through presencestill, silent, enduring. It wears the sadness of humanity on its seams. And in this way, it becomes an elegy for all those whose lives have been shaped by wars they didnt choose.
The Specter of the Unseen
Kawakubo once said, The only way to go forward is to go deeper. And this coat dives deep into the invisible. It conjures the ghosts not of soldiers who wore it, but of civilians who never did. It speaks for those who were never issued uniforms, never given the honor of battle, yet suffered all the same.
There is something deeply poetic, almost cinematic, about this idea. The coat as specter, as witness, as relic of a future that never arrived. It offers a counter-history, one where garments can feel, remember, and carry stories untold. In wearing it, the body is not adorned but enveloped. The coat doesnt just cover; it communes. It converses with the past.
Beyond the Runway
When Comme des Garons sends such a piece down the runway, it is not about spectacle. Theres no need for theatrics. The coat speaks through silence. Critics and admirers often struggle to articulate the experience. Unwearable, some say. Confusing, others suggest. But perhaps that is the point.
Kawakubo has no interest in pleasing. She is more concerned with provoking. And this trench coat provokes a kind of introspection that few fashion items ever do. It asks: what does it mean to be part of a world that constantly remembers through erasure? What is the cost of warnot only to those who fight, but to the clothes, objects, and cultures that orbit around it?
A Living Archive
In the end, this trench coat by Comme des Garons stands not as a piece of fashion, but as a living archive. It remembers without being asked. It grieves without names. It haunts without ghosts. It reminds us that even the unworn can bear scars.
To wear this coat is to embody a philosophy. It is to accept that memory isnt always direct. That pain can be collective, and mourning can be abstract. In a world obsessed with relevance, this coat finds its power in refusal. It does not march into battle. It watches from the edge and weeps.
Conclusion: Fashion as Poem, Fashion as Protest
Comme des Garons has never followed the traditional path, and this trench coat is perhaps its most poetic divergence. Comme Des Garcons Long Sleeve It turns clothing into canvas, silhouette into story. It challenges the glorification of war not through accusation, but through absence.
This is more than a coat. Its a metaphor made fabric. Its a monument stitched in cotton and wool. Its a question posed in silence. And perhaps, in that silence, we are forced to hear more than any words could say.
