Exploring an Archival Odyssey of Comme des Garçons

When Rei Kawakubo opened her first Comme des Garçons boutique in Tokyo in 1973, the revolutionary retail space – where collections were stored unseen in a backroom – did not contain a single mirror. "You just had to feel confident and had to learn about the way the clothes felt on you," explains Octavius la Rosa, the founder of the Melbourne-based vintage boutique dot COMME, which specialises in museum-worthy archival pieces by Comme…