COMME DES GARÇONS HOMME PLUS SS27 AT ÉLYSÉE MONTMARTRE

The title carries its weight before a single model walks. "If The War Were To End.." Comme des Garçons Homme Plus arrives at SS27 with a question nobody answers, staged at Élysée Montmartre, 72 Boulevard Rochechouart, Paris, a room that has absorbed punk, rave, and protest in equal measure since the 1890s. The venue matters. Rei Kawakubo does not choose rooms by accident. ## Élysée Montmartre and a Title That Goes Unfinished Élysée Montmartre has hosted Daft Punk and Nirvana in the same decade. It sits in the 18th arrondissement, north Paris, a neighborhood where subcultures arrive before mainstream fashion finds them. Choosing it for a spring/summer presentation signals positioning: this is not the Grand Palais. This is not a tent in the Tuileries. Comme des Garçons Homme Plus, launched by Kawakubo in 1984 as the experimental menswear arm of the CdG universe, has never needed prestige rooms. It needs rooms with resonance. "If The War Were To End.." The ellipsis is intentional. It is not a statement with a period. It is not a question with a mark. It trails off, which is the point. Kawakubo's collections in this decade have repeatedly used title as argument. The SS27 title positions menswear design as a reaction to global conflict: not a response, not a solution, just a continuation of making while the world burns. The same title anchored both the Élysée Montmartre presentation and the Dover Street Market Paris courtyard installation. The brand treated both as chapters of the same sentence. FO documented the [Homme Plus FW26 editorial, where sculptor Syn Murayama's masks became the collection's central visual argument](/quick/comme-des-garcons-homme-plus-fw26-masks-seiya-fujii-b7k4m9wx), showing how Kawakubo has built this strategy across consecutive seasons. ## Three Footwear Houses. One Season. Homme Plus SS27 lists three footwear partners: Mexicana Boots, Kids Love Gaite, and George Cox Footwear. Each is a distinct category. George Cox is the British heritage brand established in 1906, best known for the creeper sole and winkle picker silhouette that ran through Teddy Boy culture into punk and then into CdG's orbit across multiple prior collaborations. The brand builds in Northampton. The soles are vulcanized rubber. The uppers on classic George Cox runs have been elk suede, scotch grain, and patent leather. When CdG pulls George Cox into a collection, the specific silhouette telegraphs which archive reference Kawakubo is reading. Mexicana Boots brings a different geometry: western construction, pointed toe, stacked heel, decorative stitching. The combination of a western bootmaker alongside a British punk footwear house in the same collection is not accidental. It describes a specific postwar American mythology filtered through a Japanese designer working in Paris. Kids Love Gaite is a Paris based label with an interest in volume and proportion. The footwear sits in the space between theatrical and wearable. Their presence rounds out the trio with a French sensibility that the British and American brands do not supply on their own. Three countries. Three footwear traditions. One title about ending wars. ## Nejc Prah and the Visual Grammar Artist collaboration credit goes to Nejc Prah, a Slovenian multidisciplinary artist and visual designer whose work runs on surrealist geometry and textural contradiction. When CdG assigns an artist collaboration credit rather than just a photographer credit, the work is embedded in the design, not applied after. Prah's visual language tends toward forms that read as deliberately unresolved, which aligns with a collection that carries an unfinished title. HIZUME, credited for head pieces, is a Japanese accessories designer known for architectural construction. The head pieces at Homme Plus presentations function as a fifth limb of the silhouette. They extend the vertical line of the garment, shift the proportional read of the shoulder, and give the collection photography a consistent visual key. Takeo ARAI handled hair and makeup, a regular in editorial contexts defined by unconventional casting and experimental design. Ugo Nardini supervised the music. Thierry Dreyfus designed the lighting. Dreyfus has lit shows for Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Hermès. He understands how to build atmosphere without distracting from the clothes. The production credits for a CdG Homme Plus show are as curated as the garments themselves. ## FW26 to SS27. One Unfinished Sentence. Homme Plus SS27 continues a design argument Kawakubo has been building across at least two seasons: objects that obscure, questions that trail off, titles that refuse resolution. The masks in FW26 erased the face. The title in SS27 erases the answer. The method is different. The argument is the same. The parallel installation at [Dover Street Market Paris follows the logic Kawakubo applied to the Sao Paulo window earlier this year](/quick/comme-des-garcons-sao-paulo-rei-kawakubo-window-iguatemi-2026-cs7k4mx): retail space is not a neutral backdrop. It is another material to work with. The DSM Paris courtyard, documented separately by photographer Maurits Peeters, extends the SS27 argument into a second venue without repeating it. The three footwear houses, the artist collaboration, and a venue in Montmartre built for subcultures all carry the same point. Kawakubo is not asking if the war will end. She is asking whether the question changes what you make.