Comme des Garcons & Gallery Visit

On Monday we visited the Jia Aili Combustion gallery in Chelsea. This gallery was really cool and had a lot of very large paintings. The layout of the gallery allowed each section/room to have its own theme. The first piece looked like a night sky with stars and clouds. The next few pieces were a lot more colorful and had more shape to it. It was difficult to see exactly what the paintings were of, but I still think they look really cool and the colors complement each other. My favorite one there is a painting of what looks like glass shattered and a man trapped inside. The man in the center is very subtle and it took me a minute to see it. I like this one the most because of the dimensions of the shards of glass and how it gives a 3-dimensional effect.

On Saturday I visited the Comme des Garcons store in Chelsea as well. The store is in a really unexpected area for a high-end brand, but I think that it works for this specific brand. The walls outside are full of graffiti and it’s not very noticeable that the store is there. The entry way is a metal tunnel with red and yellow lights on the floor and glass door. The inside is very casual looking and very inviting. When I was visiting there was a good amount of customers there as well. I noticed that the men’s section had Canada Goose items and the women’s section was only Comme des Garcons. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was the Comme des Garcons PLAY section where they had their converse collaboration on display. They had handbags on every shelf above the clothing. The clothing was on rails hangings and in fixtures. The workers at the store had an edgier look, which was very fitting to the brand and the store itself.

I really enjoyed both of my visits this week . The Jia Aili visit relates to the fashion industry by giving inspiration to designers for their newest collections. Having many artists that do different things is great for inspiration and bringing out more creativity in the fashion industry. This could help me in my career by getting ideas for a future collection or how I would merchandise a floor set with colors and architecture. Comme des Garcons is important to the fashion industry by being a very fashion forward and unique brand. It offers prices that are very high-end and some that are more on the contemporary side. It’s important for the fashion industry to have stand-out and unique brands that don’t follow every trend and that blend in with all of the others. This could help me in my future career one day by being a brand I could work for or a brand I could predict future trends from.