This Curated Boutique Is Your Golden Ticket to Japanese Fashion

Dot Comme isn’t your average vintage haunt.

The Melbourne boutique and online store is home to an extensive personal collection of garments—acquired from collectors across the globe and carefully curated by Octavius La Rosa.

What makes dot Comme so unique is that the collection is predominantly a celebration of iconic Japanese designers, narrowed down to just five: Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Undercover.

La Rosa’s love affair with Japanese fashion has resulted in a collection of over 3,500 garments—only half of which are available to purchase. The other half is a selection of rare runway, not-for-sale garments which are safely tucked away in storage.

These garments are so precious, fragile and rare that Octavius—more fondly known as Otto—will only loan out pieces for museum exhibitions and select high-end publications.

The online vintage shop also has a brick-and-mortar establishment that sits on the 3rd and 4th floors of Curtain House in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD. The stylish, gallery-like space is part-clothing-store-part-museum with level 3 dedicated to a mix of street and everyday wear and level 4 displaying a smaller, rarer, and more collectable selection of garments from key runway collections.

Dot Comme also has a curated boutique on Farfetch, which means astronomical levels of exposure for this local collector.

To get you up to speed with Japanese vintage fashion, we took a deeper look at a few of our favourite designers that also made La Rosa’s cut.

Some Our Favourite Japanese Fashion Designers at dot Comme

Junya Watanabe

Junya Watanabe, a graduate of Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, began his journey as a pattern maker at Comme des Garçons, before becoming the protégé of legendary designer Rei Kawakubo. In 1993, the young designer started his own line under the Comme des Garçons name, presenting his first womenswear show in Paris that same year.

Watanabe has dabbled in the fashion mainstream with collaborations with Converse, Puma, Nike, North Face, Levi’s, amongst others.

The notoriously low-profile designer has been lauded for his innovative, avant-garde style and his original tailoring, conceptual designs and use of unique, experimental fabrics.

junya watanabe dot comme — junya watanabe, COMME des GARÇONS patchwork circles dress ($820)

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This extra-small dress is from the designer’s 2014 Autumn-Winter collection and features fabric offcut patches sewn to a mesh underlay.

junya watanabe shirt from dot comme — junya watanabe, MAN COMME des GARÇONS intarsia surfy short sleeve knit ($380)

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This surfy short sleeve knit is taken from Watanabe’s 2003 Spring-Summer collection. The small 100% cotton shirt features an intarsia knit structure and raglan sleeves.

Yohji Yamamoto

Yohji Yamamoto is an acclaimed Japanese designer known for his rebellious spirit, avant-garde style and impressive utilisation of the colour black. His first label, Y’s, was started in Tokyo in 1972, and in 1981 Yamamoto debuted his eponymous line during Paris Fashion Week.

The designer has racked up an impressive list of partnerships, the most popular of these being his Y-3 collaboration with Adidas, one of the first instances of high fashion meeting sportswear.

Yamamoto has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career, including Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon, the Ordre national du Mérite, and the Master of Design award by Fashion Group International.

YOHJI YAMAMOTO psychedelic-print suit — YOHJI YAMAMOTo, psychedelic-print suit ($1,100)

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This psychedelic-print suit is taken from Yamamoto’s 1996 Spring-Summer collection. The suit has a slim silhouette and was crafted using supple and transparent silk.

The YOHJI YAMAMOTO monogram asymmetric jacket is taken from his 2007 Autumn-Winter collection. The jacket has a leather composition, featuring an asymmetric design with cropped back, interior fastening belt and exterior dart details.

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