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Yamamoto Yohji is an influential Japanese designer, known for masterful tailoring and directional cuts. Not only considered as a master tailor such as Madeleine Vionnet , but he is also known for his avant-garde tailoring featuring Japanese design aesthetics.
From ditching Law degree to becoming maestro of fashion
Via Nicolas Guerin
Yamamoto Yohji was born in 3rd October 1943 in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. His mother is a war widow, “I was born in the ruin”, as he said in the 2011 documentary film” Yohji Yamamoto : This Is My Dream”.
Yamamoto Yohji graduated from Keio University with a degree in law in 1966 but decided to give up a prospective legal career to assist his mother in her dressmaking business. There was no doubt that she was really angry, but still suggested him attending dressmaking school. Then he further studied fashion design at Bunka Fashion College and got a degree in 1969.
After graduating from Bunka, he received a prize to go to Paris for a year but it didn’t turn out so well. At first, he tried really hard to prove his talent in Paris, sent his work to many companies and hoped that they would have noticed. But he failed and started to have negative thoughts. Then it was back in Japan that Yohji Yamamoto began to discover his true voice as a designer.
“To be modern is to tear the soul out of every thing” – Yohji Yamamoto
In 1972, after a period working at his mother’s shop, Yohji Yamamoto Yamamoto started his own womenswear label called Y’s in Tokyo. After five years, he presented the brand as a ready-to-wear collection in Tokyo before being invited to show an eponymous line in Paris for the first time in 1981. “When I started making clothes for my line Y’s in 1977, all I wanted was for women to wear men’s clothes. I jumped on the idea of designing coat for women. It meant something to me – the idea of coat guarding and hiding women’s body” , Yohji Yamamoto said.
Yohji Yamamoto’s professed love and respect for women has not been evident to many because his clothes were often devoid of Western-style gender markers. He expressed an aversion to overtly sexualized females, and often dressed women in designs inspired by men’s wear. Such cross-gender role-playing has long been a part of Japanese culture, and a persistent theme among performers and artists for centuries. The fact that Yohji Yamamoto on more than one occasion chose women as models for his menswear fashion shows was another small piece of his sexual identity puzzle.
An outfit from Autumn/Winter 2017-18 Y’s Collection
An outfit from Autumn/Winter 2017-18 Y’s Collection
An outfit from Autumn/Winter 2018-19 Y’s Collection
An outfit from Autumn/Winter 2014-15 Y’s Collection
Yohji Yamamoto is known for an avant-garde in his clothing, frequently creating designs far removed from current trends. The collection that he first debut in Paris set the fashion world on edge.Yohji Yamamoto’s designs were called “crow look” and “Hiroshima chic” aghast at the oversized black garments that were such a stark contrast to the fashion of the time.
No color in the fashion palette has been as important in the work of Yohji Yamamoto as black. Yohji Yamamoto‘s collections are predominately made in black, a color which Yohji Yamamoto has described as “modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is lazy and easy – but myserious. But above all black says this: I don’t bother you, don’t bother me.
Yohji Yamamoto for this first fashion show in Paris, 1981 (via Pinterest)
Showing no signs of taking a back seat in fashion empire
Yohji Yamamoto is about to turn 75 in this year but shows no interest in retiring from his fashion empire (via Cover Media)
Since the first debut in Paris in 1981, Yohji Yamamoto has developed a dedicated global following. His two main lines Yohji Yamamoto and Y’s are stocked in high-end department store worldwide. Other principal lines include Pour Homme, costume D’Homme and Regulation Yohji Yamamoto and Yohji Yamamoto Inc. reported in 2007 that the sales of Yohji Yamamoto’s two main lines average above $100 million annually.
But every company has their own problems. Poor decision by finance managers pushed the brand into debts of more than 65 million dollars in 2009, but it was rescued by a Japanese private-equity fund, Integral Group by 2010 the company was out of debt and avoiding the risk of bankruptcy.
Yohji Yamamoto has been recognised for his contributions to fashion with awards including the Chevalier of Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon, the Ordre national du Mérite, the Royal Designer for Industry and the Master of Design award by Fashion Group International.
Yamamoto Yohji has also collaborated with a number of brands, including Adidas (Y-3) , Hermes , Mikimoto and Mandarina Duck; and with artists such as Tina Turner, Sir Elton John, Placebo, Takeshi Kitano, Pina Bausch and Heiner Müller.
Yohji Yamamoto has been responsible for so many firsts within the industry – he was one of the first designers to cross the divide between high fashion and sportswear with his collaboration with Adidas “Y-3”, which has been a great success for over a decade. “Y” is the first letter in his name and “3” means 3 stripes – the trademark of Adidas .
” When I started with Adidas for Y – 3 it was very simple. At that moment 11 years ago people started to call me ‘maestro of fashion’ and ‘king of cut’. I felt that I came too far from the street so I wanted to come back to it. There I found sneakers jogging all over the world, so suddenly I wanted to work with sneakers as a way of getting back to the street. I made a phone call from my side to Adidas – ‘Why don’t you collaborate?’ and they said yes at once. We started so-called sport couture.”
Y-3 QASA II LOW PRIME KNIT (via http://store.y-3.com)
Y-3 QASA HIGH BLACK (via http://store.y-3.com)
Via Kanye West wearing Yohji Run
Via Nick Young wearing Uni Biker T-Shirt from Y-3
Jerry Lorenzo wearing Y-3 Pure Boost ZG Knit
Rihanna in Olive Green Jumpsuit by Yohji Yamamoto (viaFashionbomb)
Elton John commissioned Yohji Yamamoto to create costumes for his 2003 European tour (Getty Images)
Bibliography
Armstrong, Lisa. “Deconstructing Yohji.” British Vogue (August 1998): 134-137.
Chua, Lawrence. “Exploring the Yamamoto Cult.” Women’s Wear Daily (April 1988).
Hildreth, Jean C. A New Wave in Fashion: Three Japanese Designers, March 1-April 24, 1983.Phoenix, Ariz.: The Arizona Costume Institute of the Phoenix Art Museum, 1983.
Hirokawa, Taishi. Sonomama Sonomama: High Fashion in the Japanese Countryside. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1988.
Kondo, Dorinne. About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theater. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Koren, Leonard. New Fashion Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1984.
Martin, Richard. “Destitution and Deconstruction: The Riches of Poverty in the Fashions of the 1990s.” Textile and Text 15 (1992): 3-12.
Takashina, Shuji. “Japonism: An Aesthetic of Shadow and Fragment.” In Japonism in Fashion.Edited by A. Fukai. Tokyo: Kyoto Costume Research Foundation, 1996.
Wenders, Wim. Aufzeichnungen zu Kleidern und Städten (Notebook on Cities and Clothes.) Berlin: Road Movies Filmproduktion in cooperation with Centre National d’Art et du Culture Georges Pompidou, 1989.
Yohji Yamamoto’s Famous Quotes
Yohji Yamamoto in conversation with Prof Frances Corner OBE (via Highsnobiety)
“I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.”
“My role in all of this is very simple. I make clothing like armor. My clothing protects you from unwelcome eyes.”
“With my eyes turned to the past, I walk backwards into the future.”
“For me, a woman who is absorbed in her work, who does not care about gaining one’s favour, strong yet subtle at the same time, is essentially more seductive. The more she hides and abandons her femininity, the more it emerges from the very heart of her existence.”
“Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find yourself.”
| Yohji Yamamoto Official Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/yohjiyamamotoofficial/?hl=vi |
| Yohji Yamamoto Official Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/theofficialyohji/ |
| Y’s and Yohji Yamamoto Official Website | http://www.yohjiyamamoto.co.jp/ |
| Yohji Yamamoto Official Twitter | https://twitter.com/yohjiyamamototo |