In recent seasons there has been an undercurrent of anger and certainly aggression to Rei Kawakubo's Comme des Garçons. The show she unveiled today was a more tender affair - and a profoundly moving moment for that.
This designer is - famously - a woman of few words. The idea behind this was, according to those close to her, 'the seeing off of someone you love in a ceremonial way'. Hardly the average fashion fodder but then no one would ever expect that of this powerfully innovative creator.
The colour palette was restricted to highly symbolic white (for christening robes and bridal gowns perhaps?), black (the colour of mourning and widows' weeds) and gold, for Kawakubo the grand and precious metal that best befits - and indeed honours - the dear departed. Fabrication was equally evocative. Lace, brocade, humble calico and - most poignant - baby knits, were tied into over-stuffed bundles, caged, patch-worked, edged with frills, ribbons and bows and cut into shapes more reminiscent of moving sculpture - and in some cases shrouds and even tombs - than anything readily associated with conventional clothing.
On a narrow runway, their heads and pale faces veiled in tangled hair and more lace, girls met, paused for a moment to face one another and then moved on their separate ways. They were like the expression of loss incarnate.
It is rare for a fashion designer to display such unbridled and complex emotion and even less common for it to affect what is inevitably an urbane and often cynical audience so deeply. But then Rei Kawakubo's courage, passion and wilful determination to swim against the tide make her all in a class of her own.