The Comme des Garçons Collector Who Can’t Fly With Her Clothes

[light piano music]

I ve been collecting since 1992

and I think I have over 70 pieces.

Please don t tell my insurance.

Hello Vogue, I m Michelle Elie.

I m devoted to collecting Comme des Garcons.

These are more than clothes, these are emotions,

these are feelings, this is a story over the last 25 years

that I m lucky to be able to be telling through my clothes.

So my clothes are my weapon, they are my voice.

She doesn t say much,

but then she s giving your voice to her clothing.

This is the brilliant part about Rei.

She s a mysterious designer.

Don t know so much about her,

but her work speaks for herself, and I love the fact

that she s also been at the head of her design

from the beginning and still is.

So for me, that s a very significant point.

And I love the fact that also, she s a woman,

she owns her own company,

which is very rare in fashion to find still

one person who has been from the very beginning to now.

I m gonna take you to my atelier where my girls live.

[light music]

Welcome to my girls, which I love very very much,

and each one of them tells a particular story.

So the very first purchase of Comme.

It s incredible.

This is the mother of all pieces.

It has a lot of reverence to me.

It was the first designer piece that I owned.

I had no money when I bought it,

but I had done a campaign modeling,

and the first thing I thought I would do

is invest into a piece, and after this,

it was the dices falling.

What s brilliant about this piece

is when she combined a dress with a man s suit,

so this whole idea of gender combining

was already happening in 1992.

When I first bought the piece,

I never imagined that it would take me to this point

of having a collection.

It was always my wardrobe, because I wear my clothes.

I wear them all the time, so I bought with my emotions.

I didn t buy with an investment idea behind it.

I bought it because I actually wanted to wear the piece.

It wasn t until they said it was a collection

that I realized, Oh, I do have a collection.

Oh my God, wait a minute, wait a minute.

This is everything.

Everything.

You know why this is everything?

Right, right, doorknob, hanger, hooks.

Everything that is used to hang your coat,

and she makes a vest out of this.

I mean, this piece is so chic.

It s, every time I wear it,

it brings smiles to people s faces

because they cannot believe it s a piece.

It s phenomenal.

I met Rei in this dress.

I ll tell you a little story.

I bought it and then, when the Met ball was going to happen,

I thought I was going to get a ticket.

I m not mad, I m really not mad.

So I never wore the dress.

And then, the last collection before lockdown,

I drove the dress, she sat in the front of my car

because she doesn t fit anything.

I always drive my clothes to Paris cause they don t fit,

I can t carry them on the flight,

I can t carry anything.

So I drove the dress.

I had taken another piece to wore that day

for the Comme show.

I tried it on and then I said,

No no no no, I think I m gonna wear this dress.

So I decided to wear the dress,

and I decided to wear it with a mask

cause I also didn t want to be visible,

even though I would be visible in this dress obviously,

I don t understand it.

As I get to the Comme show, Adrian Joffe,

which is the husband of Rei, said,

Would you like to meet Rei?

And I was like.

I bought the dress to meet her,

and then randomly, I met her in the dress.

So this dress did everything it was supposed to do

at the right time, at the right place,

and it was so much more personal for me

because I did not meet her,

I met her at her own show backstage.

She had a beautiful smile cause she saw me in the dress.

I had a beautiful smile cause I was so honored to meet her

in the dress that I chose to meet her in the dress.

There s no order because you can t create an order

within a wardrobe, because like I said,

they re all different emotions.

It s like creating my emotions order,

it s almost impossible.

I would never be able to do that.

[light music]

I actually wore this outfit twice.

Once was my birthday

and once was during Couture Paris Fashion Week.

It reminds me of being a lobster.

Divine happiness, divine.

Aren t you happy to be looking at this outfit?

I mean, hello.

And then look at it from the back.

This is the most [Michelle gasps] precious part

of this outfit, is the back.

So she s quite cheeky.

I love the fact she s a quite cheeky look.

I think, for me, it was a matter of searching

for something different while living in New York City,

and at the time, there was a lot of Japanese

and European brands in the 90s when I lived in New York.

So downtown was my area and I was discovering the brands.

I always came every day downtown

and spent hours and hours and hours,

and I really was searching for something outside of myself.

A bug!

I need to get it!

If you see bugs, please be aware,

because they can actually be very detrimental

to this clothing, because they eat clothes.

So I keep my girls up here

because it s a controlled atmosphere.

I have to.

Madame Antoinette.

The new Marie Antoinette.

Right.

This is a tableau, darling.

This is tableau.

It s a painting.

[Michelle gasps]

Isn t that divine?

I really feel like this could be really Queen Elizabeth

or Marie Antoinette in this outfit and in the dress shirt.

And the work of the coat from the inside

is also amazing, so you can actually wear it inside out,

and then look at the playfulness.

What you don t see when you take off the coat.

[Michelle gasps]

Oh!

This is another piece that was done

by the last Men collection,

in combination with the artist called Willie Cole.

When I saw this on the runway, I was like,

[Michelle gasps]

He finally solved what I m looking for in a headpiece,

is to have my shoe on my head.

It was actually stuck in custom

because they didn t believe me, it was a hat,

and I kept saying, It is a hat,

and they said, Well, it s a lot of shoes together,

so they thought I was sneaking shoes into the country

without wanting to pay tax on it,

and then I had to send them a picture of the runway show

where the guy s wearing it, and then they released it.

That was really a funny story.

Isn t that fabulous?

That s what they told me, This is not a hat, Mrs Merae

and I was like, Oh, well it is.

I have to find the right way to wear it.

Right?

This is a badass, kick ass shoe.

When you re in the city, no one plays with you.

I love this shoe

cause I have to always take it off at the airport

because it rings all the time.

A Victorian Wash shoe with a Comme cap.

It changes completely the shoe, I love.

Look at the drawing.

Isn t that precious?

I mean, I don t have that many

of a big shoe shoe collection,

but of course, she doesn t really make shoes.

This happened in 2014 for winter,

and the owner who sold it to me, he says,

I don t want any pieces to be stored away

and I don t want pieces

to be thrown in the secondary market.

And I said to him,

Don t worry, I won t throw it in the secondary market.

I would wear it.

It definitely would have the right home.

But the funny thing is, I haven t got a box for it

cause you cannot have it on the mannequin.

Even storing it is a little bit tricky.

But this is phenomenal.

I mean, you ll be so happy to look at this piece.

It s a treat.

Ah, it s just divine happiness.

It doesn t really matter the occasion,

it s just, even if I have coffee in my kitchen is enough.

It s just amazing.

Look at this.

It s a dress.

I m so excited.

And then look, you don t have an arm,

this goes on your shoulder,

and the idea of this coming out

is just this explosion of expression.

There s something new to come out.

It s like a birth of creation, and this is so phenomenal,

so I have to treat it very well.

So I have to get a box for it, so that s in here.

[light music]

I see that it will stop when Comme stops.

I think no one can overtake the company,

but I will continue to search for the pieces

that I wasn t aware of.

I mean, there are some amazing pieces.

I don t know, I don t think I have enough space,

to be honest.

That is the real question.

I don t have enough space to store everything.

I have to ask my bank for a loan, I think.

I m not joking.

There should be a loan for fashion, to be honest.

I have to talk to my banker.

[light music]