If a Yohji Yamamoto show is an invitation for contemplation—there’s actually a card placed on every seat encouraging guests to absorb what they see on the runway rather than record it—you will likely find yourself wondering how his captivating creations go from hanger to body. Are there buttons or zippers? What is the sequence of draping, layering, and tying? Prosaic questions, to be sure, yet the designs this evening were so artfully and distinctively conceived that you could be forgiven for wanting to understand more about the process.
Yohji-san is 82, but that he can produce a collectsion of such assiduous detail—expanding and contracting a Japanese kimono as though undertaking endless studies—would suggest he is not done with learning. “If I don’t do [this], I get bored, you know?” he said backstage, quickly adding, “We have to—we, not [just] me—always be creating, and we need this passion.”
The passion that he pours into his work manifested through fabric exploration—the humble indigo cotton and flannel as substantive as the rich velvet and intricate jacquards; through the manual gestures that transform the silhouettes; and perhaps most significantly, though reconciling his Japanese roots with his Parisian couture inclinations in a poetic manner that is unique to him alone. Where else would you find canvas tennis shoes embellished with the thong strip of a geta, or vertical nests of hair through which the stage light penetrated, creating a halo effect?
While there would have been allusions to traditional or ceremonial codes of Japanese dress that eluded an unaccustomed eye, one overarching, salient impression was that these garments were not just enrobings the models but swaddling them. At a certain point, as the models continued their slow strides along the elevated runway, you became aware that, although you could barely register anything about their bodies from the neckline to the ankle, their robes and capes were not constricting. Cloth was tied high on a shoulder or slung low from behind; shawls crisscrossed whereas skirts flowed and folded; volume would bunch up in one area and release another—always signaling some kind of intuitive choice. Where a few deconstructed looks in earthy plaid were giving grunge, others elaborated with coils of striped fabric or delicate lace appeared like Van Dongen portraits.
But the artist who directly inspired Yamamoto was none other than Hokusai, and his prints figured beautifully throughout the lineup. The Edo-period artist was not only active until his death—producing even more in old age—but was among the primary sources of Japonisme, inspiring European painters such as Van Gogh and Monet. The historical elements—also evidenced by the final five models in austere knits and geta footwear—might seem less radical and more reflective than Yamamoto’s phase of emblazoning clothes with statements about climate change and war. Yet out in the streets, he noted, the looks would stand out. “They would be strange!” he declared with a smile, true to form.
