After showcasing her colourful and extravagant Spring/Summer collection, Commes des Garçons unveiled an expansion of her new Parisian boutique.
In Rei Kawakubo’s avant-garde flare, the store sits at 56 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré behind a grand glossy red door. The inside invites you to four levels. Intersecting them is a colossal white column of amoeba-like shapes.
What is unique about the boutique is the fact that none of Kawakubo’s pieces line up allowing the store to be “a voyage of discovery,” she says.
The expanded location is approximately 50 percent bigger and much more visible than the previous boutique. The aim is for shoppers to navigate around the store’s white amoeba-like clusters; and become lost in the unique structuring of the store. Here you will find not a single straight wall or path.
“I wanted to make a shop where people can experiment, explore and discover rooms one by one.
“I’m not convinced that people really are satisfied with shopping on the internet… I think the pleasure of shopping is finding things yourself,” she further comments.
Breaking the Mould
This boutique is also the only location in the world to showcase Comme Des Garçons furniture. which has not been available on the market for over 30 years.
The location further proves itself to be a sight to visit with a beautiful outdoor space featured on the store’s second level. The space plans to host a café serving mostly tea and cakes for the near future.
Kawakubo’s new store ultimately desires to break the retail mold and provide a otherworldly experience when it comes to shopping.
W Magazine says,
The 7,500-square-foot, four-level store is one of Comme des Garçons’s biggest—and is replacing the brand’s former shop next door, which was hidden away in a Parisian courtyard and stood as an insider’s haven for over two decades. Designed in the typical Comme des Garçons aesthetic with white walls and graphic, architectural shapes, Kawakubo conceived of and designed the entire space herself. The color palette is cold white, steely silver, and an incredibly pigmented shade of red, seen on the walls and throughout fixtures in the store.
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