Comme des Garçons Pleated Column Dress

A column dress is a straight vertical: no waist, no flare, no interruption between the shoulder and the floor. A pleated cloth is the opposite instinct, because a pleat exists to store width and give it back when the body moves. Putting the two together is a deliberate contradiction and it is what makes this dress worth describing. Standing still, the pleats close and the dress reads as one narrow line. Walking, they open and give back exactly as much room as the stride needs, then close again. The fiber is what makes that permanent: the cloth is polyester, which is thermoplastic, so the folds are set into it with heat rather than pressed into it. The straps are the third decision and the most exposed one: spaghetti straps carry the whole weight of a pleated column from two narrow points, which is why the dress hangs rather than sits and why the vertical line never breaks at the shoulder.

A long black dress is the easiest thing in the world to buy badly, because most of them are shapes rather than ideas. This one has a mechanism in it.

Pleating recurs throughout the main line as a way of making a garment change shape without changing size, and a column is the strictest possible frame to do it inside.

One hundred percent polyester. Made in Japan. Structured pleating, column cut, spaghetti straps. Color: black.

A column on narrow straps is sized at the bust and the shoulder and is forgiving everywhere below, because pleating accommodates rather than fits. The straps are the part to check on first wearing, since they carry the length of the dress from two small points. Polyester has recovery, so the pleats close again after a day of being sat in rather than needing to be reset, and the dress will not relax out of its line the way a natural fiber would.

Under the Asymmetrical Blazer or the Layered Organza Jacket, where a sheer over a column is the most convincing version. With the Cutout Sweater over the top for the least formal reading of it.

Polyester washes easily and will not take heat, and on a pleated garment that matters twice over, because a hot iron both glazes the surface and flattens the folds the heat was used to set in the first place. Wash cool, hang it with room around it, and let the pleats reset on the hanger rather than pressing them flat across the folds. Our care guidance covers the rest.

The Fringe Dress is a long black dress that puts all of its movement in the hem. There is more on the house on the Comme des Garçons designer page. Everything we carry from Comme des Garçons is listed together.