How Françoise Hardy gave ‘Comme Des Garçons' its name

“Like the boys and girls my age, will I soon know what love is?”, wondered Françoise Hardy in 1962. While this phrase has resonated in the hearts of many young girls in bloom and in search of romance over the past decades, it seems that it has even echoed all the way to Japan. More precisely, to the ears of designer Rei Kawakubo, pioneer of the brand Comme des Garçons. With her Levi’s jeans, impeccable shirt, and superstar looks, Françoise Hardy left a mark on French fashion, but not only. One of her most memorable outfits is the golden dress created by Paco Rabanne especially for her. A dress made up of 1,000 gold squares and 300 carats of diamonds, originally designed to promote a jewelry exhibition in Paris. Part of the Les Pacotilles collection, it weighed no less than 10 kilos and drew such a crowd at the time that the singer had to arrive at the event in an armored truck, escorted, of course, by an army of bodyguards. 

But no gold was needed to make her shine; she also made an impression in the famous smoking by Yves Saint Laurent, a black velvet tuxedo jacket worn with an organdy shirt and a lavallière, or in her signature Space Age outfits designed by André Courrèges. However, the anti-Brigitte Bardot didn’t just leave her mark on fashion made-in-france; she even managed to influence the fashion sphere unknowingly, all the way to the Land of the Rising Sun. If the Japanese brand Comme des Garçons (which still presents its collections at Paris Fashion Week today) has a French-sounding name, it’s not just to give it a romantic and chic vibe, but exclusively thanks to Françoise Hardy. It is said that Rei Kawakubo had a divine revelation while listening to Tous les garçons et les filles and later decided that her brand would (almost) take its name from one of Hardy’s lyrics. Incredible to think that Kawakubo was probably crying over a lost or never-arrived love like the rest of us, all to the sound of Françoise Hardy. What can you do? She’s literally just a girl, too.