The Comme des Garçons Hommme Plus show was held in a disused bank space on Place Vendome to a packed audience. The atmosphere was tense before the show, and the lights came up burning bright, with the first exits coming out to the hissing of electric bulbs that quickly morphed into the unrelenting heavy electronic pound of Jon Hopkins.

The collection was brutal in its execution, with a long, lean, shadowy silhouette, finished off with slicked flat hair and blackened eyes. Fabrics were uniformly lightweight and multi-layered, and topped off with tight leatherwear buckled in the back like straight jackets. The look was pared down, and dark, even in its lightest shades, as clothes peeled back to reveal inserts of contrast fabrics underneath, edging their way to the surface. Tails were layered to the back with jackets flowing into shirts, collars were triplicated on jackets, and even T-shirts had several visible necklines.

This peeling, and layering, and replication of the same detail in declinations of size, acted as a kind of metamorphosis, a freedom that could come from bursting out of those tight leather bindings to reveal purer form, and on occasion, acid-colored psychedelic cartoon prints hiding underneath.