This winter Comme des Garçons is doubling down on its all-black aesthetic with a dark new pop-up shop in London. After debuting in Tokyo earlier this year, the CDG Black Market has arrived at Dover Street Market London. The new store concept is the latest in a series of initiatives in celebration of the store’s 15th anniversary and features a vast range of products and CDG collaborations with a number of brands including Burberry, Gucci, Casio, and Porter. And after Dior released its own black BMX bike in 2017, the Japanese designer is releasing its own version in collaboration Kuwahara BMX, decked out in “CDG Black Market” branding. With the holidays in full swing, it’s clear that Comme des Garçons is dreaming of a black Christmas indeed.
CDG Black Market is open now at 18-22 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4DG.
Off-White collaborated with Dover Street Market once again following the recent opening of its Los Angeles store. The newest collection is a monochromatic assortment of pieces featuring a newly designed logo for the store, and replete with Off-White founder Virgil Abloh’s signature quotation marks. In addition to the logo redesign, the collection features hoodies, bags, t-shirts, and caps among other accessories. Further graphic motifs include screen prints of slogans like “Watch Your Back” and the semi-deep “You Actually Fell in Love with an Image.” It’s a delightful collection that brings out the essence from both fashion influences.
The Off-White x Dover Street Market collection is available online now.
Dover Street Market now opened doors to a sixth store in Los Angeles. Following in the footsteps of the other stores, DSMLA is inspired by the beautiful chaos of energy and atmosphere that forms when a community of creatives, designers, and artists come together in one space.
JACQUEMUS. Photos: Courtesy of DSM
For the first installation, the designer and creative director, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons wanted to create an environment where there is a “mixing up and coming together of different kindred souls who all share a strong personal vision,” she shared in a statement. The store is a single-level space with two adjoining concrete buildings unclad and completely white-out except for the small DSMLA logo. Kawakubo designed the entire interior of the store, including all brand spaces, fitting rooms, general areas and other architectural flair. In contrast with the sharp angles of the exterior, the interior fills with arching, spirals and circular movements, rendered in elemental metals crafter from Japan. And in true DSM fashion, two massive and iconic white translateral huts sit at the dividing wall between the two buildings.
In celebrating the true brightness and creativity of LA, the store specially features six artists — Warren Muller, Lyn Dillin, Bjorn Dahlem, Yuichi Higashionna, Gary Card, and Stuart Haygarth — who’s chandeliers can be seen throughout the store, and the usual designers like CDG and Sacai, and also Jacquemus amongst many. At DSM, artists and designers are regularly welcome and invited to add in-store installations to the constantly-evolving space. Aural experience curated by DSM’s global sound director, Calx Vive. Rose Kennedy Schlossberg is commissioned to create video dispatches for DSMLA. And Dover Street Market Los Angeles will be featuring a 40-seat Rose Bakery, indoor and outdoor space included.
To keep us on our toes at all times, by tradition the interior designs and the new stock collections and pieces quickly rotate.
DSMLA is located at 606-608 Imperial Street in the Arts District
The crisp flick of a black card is a sinful, self-indulgent holiday treat when they’re your bags to take home. Here to help you partake in a smarter form of vice, we present the 2017 Holiday Gift Guide for Yourself. Of course, any selfish grab can be balanced by a few humble purchases for the other important people in your life: check back next week for delicious picks for the rest of your family, chosen or stuck with.
1. Cassiar scarf, ACNE STUDIOS
Image: Acne Studios.
This colorful checked scarf from Acne will keep you warm all winter in Britpop fashion.
Cassiar scarf in mid blue/yellow check, $240, ACNE STUDIOS. AcneStudios.com
2. AW Parka, ADIDAS ORIGINALS BY ALEXANDER WANG
Image: Adidas Originals.
Snag a souvenir from one of the year’s most popular collaborative efforts.
AW parka, $300, ADIDAS ORIGINALS BY ALEXANDER WANG. Adidas.com
3. Censer, APPARATUS
Image: Apparatus.
This new incense/candle holder from Apparatus exudes tranquility in any space.
“Jijibaba is a Japanese term for Grandma or Grandpa, but for me it’s also a word that a child could say easily. So for me, it’s like the beginning and the end of life. It’s playful,” declared Jaime Hayon, product designer and co-founder of menswear label Jijibaba, at the launch of his collection in Dover Street Market New York.
Since its global reveal at London Design Week, the brand has quickly become a surprise hit among industry insiders. Designed by European industrial designers Jaime Hayon and Jasper Morrison, the pair’s debut collection has received enthusiastic response despite neither coming from a fashion background.
We spoke to Hayon to learn more about his first venture into menswear, challenging the traditional fashion cycle, and the future of the ‘why-not?’ brand.
To start, you and Jasper don’t even consider Jijibaba to be a fashion line.
Mmhm. Some items might not be permanent, but some of them will — we don’t have a specific seasonal idea. If you design a collection by the season, you already determine the life and death of the product. Sometimes you find something you love, then it’s immediately unavailable — it’s not because people are tired of it, but because the fashion cycle is a tool that makes people want to renew their clothing constantly. We don’t work like that — we tell people we will introduce the clothing when it’s ready. There’s not a summer or winter collection, this is just how we do things.
Do you want to continue working with people who don’t have a fashion background?
Yeah, that’s the idea. For now, we want people that don’t see fashion as fashion. For us, to have a completely virgin approach is what we want. When I designed the patterns on some of the shirts — I made some drawings with pencils — when I was in the factory the guy didn’t know what to think. It was a novel approach to him. In my opinion, being unfamiliar with the matter makes you more creative on the matter.
Do you have any plans to expand into womenswear?
Absolutely! We just gotta get a woman on board who wants to make some nice clothes. We have some people in mind, people that are making amazing stuff like furniture and even graphic designers. I don’t wanna keep only the industrial point of view, we eventually want a graphic designer or artist to come on board and do something great. The other day I was looking at an incredible glass-blower. I was looking at the color that he used and I asked ‘what would you do for us?’ and immediately he had an idea. So we’re very open. And there’s still shoes to do, glasses, accessories… there’s a lot of possibilities.
And no pressure to rush it out anytime soon.
Yeah, we’re seeing what people like from this collection. Obviously some people in the fashion business are surprised by what we do. Even our clothing rack system is quite interesting because we can mount it in different ways — it’s completely modular. It’s actually the first thing Jasper and I have designed together.
After debuting your collection at Dover Street Market London and now New York, are you interested in opening up a permanent space?
Why not? For sure — we will. We already have a design for it. We’re gonna need space. The ability to make anything — clothing and products, etc — is like why not? We’re a ‘why-not’ operation, which is interesting in terms of proposing something that people might not be used to in the fashion world. This is why we’re here at Dover Street Market. For us to be here is an honor. But I talked to them for 5 minutes and they loved the idea – they said ‘you guys are different, and we like that.’
Spanish designer Jaime Hayon and British designer Jasper Morrison have teamed up to launch a men’s fashion line, Jijibaba, available exclusively at Dover Street Market London. Titled ‘Items 1-38,’ the debut collection was first revealed during London Design Week, showcasing signature elements of each designer. The sharp and classic clothing shapes are emblematic of Morrison’s minimalism, while the playful graphics and uses of color reflect Hayon’s lighthearted design approach. Conceived as a seasonless fashion entity, the line will continue to evolve as each collection will be designed in collaboration with a new contributing designer. The 38-piece collection is currently only available in the UK, but will launch internationally in October. Jijibaba is available at Dover Street Market London and online now.
Luxury eyewear label Mykita takes over an exhibition space in New York’s upscale Dover Street Market for a limited installation.
The display is constructed from bound-together flight attendant trolleys to create a monolithic pseudo-cabinet, a nod to the brand’s industrial Berlin roots. The doors are left open to showcase the carefully curated selection of frames, including picks from collections like Lite, Mykita Mylon, and collaborations with Damir Doma, Bernhard Willhelm, and Maison Margiela. The pop-up also features an exclusive pair of sunglasses, the Mykita for DSMNY, an iteration of the Erin frames in blue gray with contrasting mauve lenses, available only at the NYC location.
The new installation will last for three weeks, followed by a permanent store on the seventh floor of the retail center.
The relocated Dover Street Market is now open for business in a building constructed by Thomas Burberry in the early 1900s in London’s Haymarket with an interior enhanced by Comme Des Garçons‘ Rei Kawakubo, allowing featured brands to recreate their own spaces in a polychromatic environment that qualifies as anything but a retail shop.
Image: Dover Street Market.
The installations and build-outs are multi-facets of the DSM partners, such as Rick Owens, Vetements, and Thom Browne, settling on extreme contrasts in the positioning of a merchandise in which clothing and accessories are split up between floors in a distributed atmosphere of design.
Image: Dover Street Market.
The central staircase pierces through all floors, and at each level there is a theme that connects the set of stairs, beginning with a Pirosmani installation on the first floor.
Image: Dover Street Market.
In addition to the interior madness, a musical air configures each of the five floors with a carefully curated selection of wide-ranging music. Special items, displays, and capsule collections are also part of this incredible experience that leaves customers in awe in this mix of music, art, and fashion.
With the calendar officially marking vacation season, the sizzling weather is a call for not only a stand-out body, but also a creative swimsuit; yet, alas, scoring the best discussion-prompting pair can often go from midsummer night’s dream to tragedy with so many options yet so little finds. For those who have lost their way in fruitless search, here is the ultimate roundup of bold swimwear for either yacht-hopping in Ibiza or chilling poolside in the Hamptons.
1. Printed Dog Front Shorts, Julien David x Quiksilver
Image: Dover Street Market.
Julien David and Quiksilver’s peculiar partnership did not let us down when it offered its equally eccentric printed shorts that stay true to edgy attitude of the Parisian label and the laid-back ethos of the surfwear house.
For Calvin Klein Collection‘s Spring/Summer 2015 release, Men’s Creative Director Italo Zucchelli devised a blazing collection of devilish sportswear in warm shades with a cool attitude. To celebrate its retail release, CKC has re-collaborated with Dover Street Market for the two fashion brands’ second capsule collection, exclusive to DSM’s New York and Ginza locations. Featuring four one-of-a-kind tops based off Zucchelli’s original runway jackets (as seen above), the capsule—two jackets, one tee, and a tank—translates the fire of Spring/Summer 2015 to low-key tonal grays. Our particular favorite? The Higash PVC bomber is a sporty and non-aggressive transition from spring to sweltering weather.
Image: Calvin Klein.
The Calvin Klein Collection x Dover Street Market capsule collection is available now in-store at Dover Street Market New York and Dover Street Market Ginza.
Smartly timed with New York Fashion Week, Dover Street Market New York unveiled a special installation for Julien David x Quiksilver, an unprecedented collaboration between the Aussie surfwear company and Parisian designer.
A three-year-long project, the highlight of the collab is the boardshort: a staple surfer’s item first born in the ’70s that has been mastered in design by Quiksilver in the 40 plus years since. Using the brand’s new eco-driven production methods, combined with its AG47 high-tech finishes, David injects his playful and radical approach to fashion in the new sustainable designs. Reflecting the fusion of both street and surfing cultures, the new space mirrors the collection, which draws from the late 80s and early 90s, a time that David (as a teenager) personally interacted with Quicksilver.
For the initial launch, the boardshorts—along with other pieces including wetsuits, rash guards, and T-shirts—will be presented with the designer’s own collection in the the high-concept store.
Game, set, and match. Pharrell called it, Kenzo showed it, and Dior Homme nailed it—hell we even wrote about it: see “On the Dot” in Essential Homme August/September 2014—the polka dot has popped up this year more popular than ever before. Joining this retro resurfacing just in time for the holidays, fashion-subverting savants Comme des Garçons have added their own spin to the preppy pattern, decorating heritage tennis styles from Bata Tennis into limited edition low-tops. Exclusively sold at Comme des Garçons boutiques, Dover Street Market, I.T Beijing Market, and colette, the new collaboration bounces off the minimalism of the original design, adding bursts of playfulness and curved quirk.
Image: Comme des Garçons.
Image: Comme des Garçons.
Comme des Garçons x Bata Tennis Shoes retail for $120 and will be available on December 4, 2014.
