Comme des Garçons Pleated Trouser

Most pleated trousers are pleated at the waist and smooth from the hip down, which is a way of adding room where the body needs it and nowhere else. This one is pleated throughout, and that is a different proposition: the leg is not a tube with folds at the top but a cloth that is folded all the way to the hem, so its width is stored rather than cut. Standing still it reads narrow and vertical. Walking, it opens. The fiber choice is doing real work here. Polyester is thermoplastic, which means a fold can be set into the fiber itself with heat rather than merely pressed into the cloth, and pleating in a synthetic behaves differently from pleating in wool or cotton for exactly that reason. It is the difference between a pleat that has to be maintained and one that is part of what the cloth is.

Why we selected it

A wide trouser that stays narrow until it moves is the most useful version of volume we know, and pleating the whole leg is the only way we have seen it done properly.

Pleating recurs across the main line as a way of building shape into cloth instead of cutting it, and this trouser is the plainest black statement of it.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent polyester. Made in Japan. Wide-legged, with large pleats throughout. Color: black.

Fit notes

Choose for the waist. A pleated leg carries its own width and will not need to be sized up for room through the thigh, and the hem is wide enough that it sits over most shoes without breaking. The pleating means the trouser reads at two different widths depending on whether you are standing or moving, which is worth knowing before you judge it on a hanger.

Styling

With the Ruffle Top for black and white with texture on both halves. With the Triple-Layer Mesh Tee, where two different ways of building a surface sit against each other. Under the Asymmetrical Blazer.

Care

Polyester is easy to wash and unforgiving about heat, and on a pleated garment that matters twice over, because a hot iron will both glaze the surface and flatten the folds you paid for. Wash cool, hang to dry, and let the pleats reset on the hanger rather than pressing them. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Wide Pleated Trousers carry the same pleating through the leg, with belt loops and side pockets. There is more on the house on the Comme des Garçons designer page. Everything we carry from Comme des Garçons is listed together.