Comme des Garçons is Rei Kawakubo's conceptual anti-fashion house — a strict discipline of deep black, austere Helvetica typography, and the absence of ornament. Since 1969 Kawakubo has built clothes-as-art rather than glamour, famously declaring she works with "three shades of black."

The visual identity refuses decoration: pure white-on-black or black-on-white, monospaced wordmarks, gallery-grade product display. The PLAY sub-brand's red-heart-with-eyes mascot (Filip Pagowski, 2002) is the only saturated color permitted — a single playful counterpoint to the otherwise monastic system.