COMME DES GARÇONS SHIRT S/S27 ASICS YUSHO KOBAYASHI

CdG SHIRT does not stage runway shows. The sub label built on woven prints and graphic construction communicates through campaigns, and S/S27 is being introduced through seven images that credit three distinctly unlikely partners: ASICS SportStyle for footwear, Yusho Kobayashi for artwork and hand painted hats, and Fred Perry as a closing collaboration credit. Takeo ARAI handled hair and makeup. This is what a Comme des Garçons sub label sounds like when it is serious about an entire season in a single editorial drop. ## CdG SHIRT Does Not Do Runways. It Does Campaigns. The distinction matters. Comme des Garçons Homme Plus just staged a presentation titled If The War Were To End at Élysée Montmartre in Paris, a full production with Kawakubo's architectural seating, HIZUME headpieces, and artists including Nejc Prah. FO covered [that presentation and the parallel DSM Paris courtyard installation](/quick/comme-des-garcons-homme-plus-ss27-elysee-j8k4m2rx) when the images landed. CdG SHIRT operates from a different premise: the sub label's argument is made through the print, the weight of the fabric, and the construction of the woven shirt, not through staging. Seven images. Three listed partners. No venue. That is the CdG SHIRT method. Comme des Garçons SHIRT sits between the main line's conceptual aggression and CDG PLAY's accessible heart print commercialism. It is the label that puts Pollock adjacent all over prints on Oxford weight poplin, that constructs shirts with deliberate collar treatment and buttons that feel correct in the hand. S/S27 does not announce itself with a manifesto. The campaign images do the work. ## ASICS SportStyle Provides the Sole. CdG Provides the Print Logic. ASICS SportStyle is the lifestyle division of the Japanese running brand, the side of ASICS that operates in the territory of collaboration and wearable design rather than performance specifications. The credit on CdG SHIRT S/S27 indicates a footwear collaboration. Two Japanese origin brands in direct conversation: ASICS started in Kobe in 1949 to make better running shoes, Comme des Garçons was founded in Tokyo in 1969 to make clothes that refused easy consumption. The convergence point is construction literacy. ASICS SportStyle's collaborative work tends toward taking a performance silhouette and running it through the design language of the partner brand. CdG SHIRT's contribution would logically be print forward, translating the same logic it applies to its shirting into a shoe form. The campaign images position the footwear as an active element of the editorial rather than a product shot added after the fact. For broader context on what Kawakubo's enterprise is building across sub labels this season, [the Kawakubo courtyard installation at Dover Street Market Paris documents the Homme Plus SS27 presentation from the outside](/quick/kawakubo-dsm-paris-ss27-courtyard-peeters-d9k3m7rx). ## Yusho Kobayashi Hand Painted the Hats. One at a Time. The caption credits Kobayashi for artwork on the garments and for physically painting the hats. Two functions, one artist. Yusho Kobayashi contributes to the S/S27 campaign both as the artist whose work appears in print or textile form on the garments and as the person who directly applied pigment to each hat documented in the seven campaign images. Hand painting in a fashion campaign context is not a technique. It is a declaration of uniqueness. These hats are not produced by screen print or machine embroidery. The hats in the campaign images are singular objects, each one distinct in execution. That tension between handcraft and commercial distribution is where CdG SHIRT operates most precisely. The label has always been interested in the point where individual artistic production meets the logistics of a fashion season. A hand painted hat in a campaign photograph is simultaneously evidence of craft and a product for sale. ## The Fred Perry Credit Is Not Decorative. Fred Perry appears in the campaign caption credits without further explanation. That is also the CdG SHIRT method. The brand does not over-explain its collaborations. Fred Perry is a British sportswear brand founded in 1952 by the three time Wimbledon champion, embedded in mod culture through its polo shirts and in punk and skinhead subcultures through the adoption of the laurel wreath logo. CdG SHIRT and Fred Perry share an interest in the tension between sporting heritage and subcultural recontextualization. Both brands carry polo construction history. Both reference British tailoring conventions in their collar treatments. The collab is likely shirting, given that CdG SHIRT is a woven shirt label and Fred Perry has decades of polo shirt construction history. Two polo traditions, one collaboration credit in the caption, no press release required. S/S27 is seven frames and three collaborators. The CdG SHIRT season does not need more than that.