COMME des GARÇONS really loves to hit me with a financial conundrum: Should I decide to drop some cash to snap up one of their wallets covered in Henry Taylor’s stunning acrylic paintings, I will then have to live with the knowledge that the inside of said wallet will be as empty as a desert ghost town. A tumbleweed may even roll out as I unzip it.

Alas, that’s the price I must pay for loving the work of the acclaimed Los Angeles-based painter. And honestly? Dropping upwards of $320 on one of the wallets is almost a steal, given that one of his recent works sold for nearly $2.5 million in 2023. 

Call it gay math or simply an art lover’s retail addiction, but it’s been ages since a fashion brand dropped a big collab with a big artist that actually felt cool.

That may be because most fashion brands seem incapable of moving beyond the same half dozen artists (if I see one more Keith Haring collab, I’ll crash out), but it’s also because plastering Taylor’s works onto a wallet doesn’t feel like a cash grab — wallet joke fully intended.

COMME des GARÇONS Wallet is no stranger to plastering art onto its leather grain. Previous collaborations include artists Diana Ejaita, Oscar Tuazon, and KAWS, as well as everyone from Supreme to Pharrell Williams’ Billionaire Boys Club to Tremaine Emory's Denim Tears. 

For artists specifically, a wallet’s rectangular or square shape translates perfectly to the standard sizing for many of their works, while Kawakubo’s own status as one of fashion’s most artistically minded designers adds an element of respectability to the partnership — key to protecting the fickle sense of “artistic integrity” still hovering over the art world. 

Call me biased, but this new CDG x Henry Taylor collection may be the best iteration yet. There’s the textural element, where the leather grain almost mimics the surface of his acrylic paintings, but there’s also the genius of the COMMiverse coursing through this collab, thanks to designer Rei Kawakubo’s very own constellation of Dover Street Market boutiques. Just three blocks away from DSM Paris, the Picasso Museum is staging the first survey exhibition of Taylor’s career in France. 

There’s synergy, there’s proximity, and then there’s this partnership — brokered by Ursula Magazine, the in-house publication of Taylor’s gallery, Hauser & Wirth. Selling a must-buy wallet adorned with Taylor’s captivating paintings just a few minutes’ walk from an exhibition of 100 works from across his career? That’s a flex no other brand besides COMME can pull off. 

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