In last season’s show notes – which, for Comme des Garçons , typically arrive as a short, elusive sentence or singular word – designer Rei Kawakubo announced her affinity for creating in black. “I have come to realise that, after all, black is the colour for me,” she explained, referencing the brand’s corresponding AW26 collection which included a series of 20 black looks.

She expanded on this idea in her recent cover interview with Dazed, saying, “Black is an essential colour for my artistic expression, because black is the colour of resistance, of justice and of independence.” For the Japanese label’s SS27 show in Paris, however, Kawakubo turned back to colour – presenting a collection of sculptural, wearable art, all cut in crimson polka dots, cobalt blue, faded green, and mustard yellow.

This time around, Kawakubo’s one-liner read : “When royal life and everyday life become one.” Fittingly, the looks came accented with tall, crown-like headpieces designed by Nobuki Hizume . But the collection itself felt more casual – using rough-cut denim shaped into avant-garde proportions, plasticky brocade that peeked out from underneath pieced-together jackets, and pinstripes puffed-up into pillow-like separates to unravel any idea of royal dressing as we know it.

Meanwhile, other looks seemed to reshape the human body completely. Hair splayed out from behind tubular gowns, fabric was scrunched behind XXL ribcages, dresses morphed models’ silhouettes into guitar and violin shapes, and clear corsets elongated and hunched the shoulders.

So, what does it all mean? In true CDG fashion, there’s no way to know for sure, but scroll past any video from the occasion and you’re sure to see a few members of the fashion crowd smiling in the audience – which, in today’s industry, might be the point.

“I believe the role of fashion is that, by expressing oneself through what one wears, one’s spirits are lifted,” Kawakubo told Dazed in her cover interview , responding to how design can impact dark and hopeless times. “In other words, [fashion] has a positive effect.”

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At Paris Fashion Week, the avant-garde Japanese label urged us to unplug and touch grass