JUNYA WATANABE × COMME DES GARÇONS × KENTARO KOBUKE ARTWORK SHIRTS FW2002

JUNYA WATANABE × COMME DES GARÇONS × KENTARO KOBUKE ARTWORK SHIRTS FW2002

In Fall/Winter 2002, Junya Watanabe launched a series of collaborative graphic tees under the Comme Des Garçons Man Pink line, marking the debut partnership with Japanese artist Kentaro Kobuke.

Kobuke, a graduate of Tokyo’s Kuwasawa Design School, had just begun making a name for himself. That same year, he released his first art book, Start, and participated in Visions Tokyoites—a group exhibition held at St. Père in Paris spotlighting rising Japanese visual artists. The momentum of that Paris showing led to his collaboration with Watanabe.

The resulting series featured Kobuke’s signature illustrations—drawn in colored pencil, deceptively innocent, dreamlike in tone, and layered with surrealism. Faces blur into objects, limbs distort, eyes widen. There’s no irony, only emotion. The garments don’t decorate—they carry.

"I don't really like talking to people. I prefer staying in my room." — Junya Watanabe

What emerged was not just print-on-fabric, but a visual narrative: childlike in medium, precise in execution. Each shirt becomes a wearable canvas—bridging contemporary art and experimental menswear at a time when both were in flux.

PAKASHI’s Archive is a study in the garments that shaped cultural and fashion discourse.

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