HIGHER LOVE: Fashion and retail maverick Rei Kawakubo — whose mindset for her latest Comme des Garçons fashion show was “anger against everything in the world, especially against myself” — is not the sort to talk about luxury, brand elevation or leather goods merchandising.
And yet, later this week, the Comme des Garçons flagship store in Paris is to receive Kawakubo’s first Made in Italy handbags, which are luxurious in appearance and make, and take the brand into higher-than-usual price tiers.
The trapezoid models — in small and medium sizes — mark “the beginning of a new collection of bags, boasting the highest quality of manufacture and material that only Italy can offer,” Comme des Garçons said in a brief statement shared exclusively with WWD.
About a week after arriving at the Paris store at 56 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the Made in Italy bags are to roll out to all other Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market locations worldwide.
Small bags are priced from 1,230 euros to 1,480 euros, while medium bags top out at 1,700 euros.
Until now, most handbags at Comme des Garçons have been made in Japan, and retail for under 1,000 euros. The brand’s small leather goods, including its emblematic zippered wallets, are made in Japan.
Meanwhile, Kawakubo and her husband Adrian Joffe, chief executive officer of Dover Street Market and president of Comme des Garçons International, are gearing up to open a Paris branch of Dover Street Market in early May.
It’s being teased on the Dover Street Market website as an endeavor involving “a non-deciphering of the opposite of time.”
