it takes two, baby; Or three.(London fashion)

Byline: Mark Holgate

Quietly, without a whole lot of fuss, there's a fashion revolution afoot in Mayfair. The elaborately art-directed windows are the only hint at what's going on behind the austere Georgian-London facade of the Dover Street Market: a think tank devoted to the most interesting fashion of the moment. Wander around its six floors and you'll find exclusive collections from Boudicca, Azzedine Alaia, and Alber Elbaz; Judy Blame jewelry; Terry de Havilland shoes; Undercover's first boutique outside Japan; and Hedi Slimane's debut range of stark, graphic black-what else?-furniture. But what's really interesting, though impossible to discern from the discreet plaque by the door, is that this market is the brainchild of Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons.

It's the most extravagant expression of an idea that's been growing apace in fashion: designers collaborating with other designers-by either selling one another's clothes or actually creating together. It's a riposte to the received wisdom that a designer is an auteur-like figure, someone whose individual creativity and vision should never be compared and contrasted with that of his contemporaries. That Kawakubo should be in the vanguard of this movement is surprising: She's someone whose rigorous, conceptual approach would, you'd think, hold no truck with any other opinions of what fashion should be. But, au contraire, Kawakubo welcomes the idea of having her clothes positioned beside that of other talents. "We're sharing the space, but no one's losing their identity," she says. "If anything, what each of us does is somehow accentuated. The result can only be positive."

Cameron Silver is bringing his L.A. vintage emporium, Decades, to the Dover Street Market-and he's thrilled to be collaborating with Kawakubo. "It might not seem that there's a natural association between us," he says, "but then I realized why it works: Each of us is the antithesis of cookie-cutter fashion." (For Silver there's also a more pressing personal aspect to this London venture: He thinks the city is in dire need of some decent evening dresses. "You only have to look at Hello! to see that.")

The industry can be very "insider," cliquey, ego-driven. So the individuals involved in these collaborations tend to be those who aren't threatened by bringing someone else into the creative equation. "I don't think you can collaborate without first having the ...