Rei Kawakubo opened her fall collection with a calf-length, fully-buttoned leatherette coat. The coat was, in fact, backless, a hint of the unusually provocative collection to come. She followed this with a series of half coats and jackets secured by a single black ribbon, sometimes shown over short shift dresses. Then, suddenly, the coat was frontless instead of backless, revealing a pair of ruffled black shorts and a barely-there nude tulle crop top. As the jackets became more knotted and bunched, tiny touches of color were suggestively exposed in the form of vintage scarves all stitched and ruched together. Added to the half jackets were a series of half sleeves, all in fantastic scarf prints that apparently came from her personal collection, amassed over 40 years.

Some charming 60s-print one-sleeved dresses were made completely out of scarves, some with the black ruffle stripes on top. As each layer was added, so another was subtracted, maintaining a poetic balance between blasts of color and solid black, and between concealing and revealing the flesh, as in a black brocade half suit with matching ruffled micro-shorts, a single printed sleeve and nearly bare chest. All the looks were perfectly complemented with a gold hair helmet.

Then, unexpectedly, after the lights had already dimmed, the girls returned in gold leatherette coats and hoodies, buzzing around like fireflies before disappearing again.