The Japanese label Comme des Garçons held an especially prime spot in the Basquiat’s wardrobe. He was known to drop unholy amounts of cash at their New York store, and a black collarless, cardigan-style overcoat by the brand, in which he’s pictured on multiple occasions, is believed to be one of his all-time favourite items. In his book What Artists Wear, the menswear critic Mr Charlie Porter notes that Basquiat “found his language understood” in the creations of Ms Rei Kawakubo, which displayed an interest in the abstract and avant-garde, and a good-humoured disregard for conventions.

As it turns out, the adoration was very much mutual. With his dazzling combination of youth, fame, style, good looks, street smarts and raw talent – plus his obvious fondness for the brand – Basquiat eventually caught the eye of Kawakubo, who in 1987 requested he appear at her upcoming spring-summer show in Paris. Porter’s book offers us an intimate glimpse behind the scenes courtesy of Basquiat’s friend and muse, stylist Ms Karen Binns, whose then-husband was an employee of Kawakubo and helped make the connection. According to Binns, Basquiat agreed on a fee while painting in his New York studio, was flown out and put up in a swish hotel in Paris, and smoked a joint just before showing up.

For the show, Basquiat was styled in a series of looks. In this photograph, he wears a double-breasted, peak-lapelled pinstriped suit, not unlike those in his wardrobe back home, paired with Mary Jane shoes that add a perfectly offbeat element. He’s as good a fit for the clothes as any of the professional models. But in videos, the famously shy Basquiat seems to bear an almost dazed expression amid the camera flashes. Even in the sort of sumptuous suiting he’d grown accustomed to, the subject of attention he’d believed he was destined for since childhood, there was always a foreboding fragility and an underlying sense of displacement in his new rarefied, ultra-white milieu.

In 2018, Comme des Garçons nodded to the historic moment by collaborating with the artist’s estate on a collection of white shirts and T-shirts tricked out with his inimitable, instantly recognisable handiwork. In doing so, it joined a long list of fashion brands – from SAINT LAURENT to Supreme – that have adopted his crown motifs and graffiti-like scrawls for their wares. Almost 35 years after his death, Basquiat’s influence is still yet to peter out, his work and every ephemera commanding eye-watering, record-breaking sums; his boundless legacy sitting in sharp contrast to his tragically short life. As friend of Basquiat Mr Fred Brathwaite summed up: “Jean-Michel lived like a flame. He burned really bright. Then the fire went out. But the embers are still hot.”

Much has been made of the use of Basquiat’s image and his works in the realm of luxury fashion, which some believe has now veered into “over-commercialisation” and “appropriation”. Glossy campaigns have elicited discomfort among living close friends, and been met with a stream of hot (often ill-informed) Twitter takes, questioning how they chime with his “radical” values. However valid these criticisms may be, a journey into the Comme des Garçons archives also serves as a reminder of Basquiat’s duality. Here was a man who clearly revelled in the high life and soaked up the fame he’d long sought, despite not quite being built for it. A man who, much like modern-day celebrities, offered commentary on weighty topics (misrepresentation, police brutality, slavery) with an incredible deftness, but equally had no qualms in bringing his brand of Brooklyn cool to the ritzy catwalks of Paris, just to lend his favourite high-fashion label the ultimate seal of approval.

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