Address: 5-3-20 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo (Omotesando metro station)

Comme Des Garcons designer Kawakubo’s creations are challenging – both to the eye and the traditional notion of fashion.  Beloved by the avant garde, she morphs deconstructed garments with dark hues and modernistic fabrics to provoke and mystify.  Of course, as Comme Des Garcons went global the designs have become more mainstream.  The selling concept has been turned on its head too: while others spent millions on palaces to display their wares, CdG went to the other extreme opening hundreds of stores often only for a few months in a location.  Surprisingly, the Tokyo location in Ayoyama lacks the architecture and design interest of the stores in NY and Paris but is still worth visiting not least because the sales staff take clothing concepts to the extreme and are also extremely helpful.

PS. See below the location map in English. Tokyo maps provided by Google and showed at the “Location Map” section are in Japanese.