Yohji Yamamoto’s worldly charisma coupled with the magic of his creative world has had a profound effect on many people through the years, lending a staying power to his inner circle of ongoing friendships and working relationships that continue to flower and bear fruit.

One such disciple of Yohji is Donata Wenders, the German photographer and wife of filmmaker Wim Wenders. Donata confesses to wearing little else than Yohji’s garments. Her fascination with the ritual and procession of a Yohji Yamamoto fashion show is explained in A#2, in her detailed recount of the comings and goings backstage, accompanied by her black and white photography.

Donata’s film photographs are emotional and very human, and although they are photojournalism in the sense of their subject and documenting an event, they remain entirely artistic and complex through interplay of light, shadow and the human body. In her text, Donata suggestively personifies Yohji’s garments, as teachers to the young models who wear them, and she describes how the girls transform:

“The girls slip into ‘their’ dresses and doing so they all seem to transform, as if they were butterflies appearing out of their cocoons. Somehow they all turn magically into the characters they are made to be for this moment on the catwalk.”