It was a dark and rainy January day in Paris during the Mens Fashion show. I was invited to Comme des Garçons and decided to shadow my face by wearing a black velvet hat. I was sitting near to my dear friend ‘little big man’ Azzedine Alaïa and we started to laugh and chat while waiting for the show to begin. I sensed that someone was taking the seat to my left, it was Yohji Yamamoto!

He said very softly, bending towards me, almost under my hat, “What are you doing these days?” I said, “I am taking time for myself”. He said “You have a beautiful hat”. I said, “Thank you very much”.

The day after, I was invited for tea in the Marais. He said, “I have the feeling my language is not understood”. I said, “I understand you”. He said, “I wanted to ask you to be my translation.”. A few months after, I said “Yes”.

I preciously kept my black velvet hat.

These are the words of Irène Silvagni in A#2, as she describes the 1992 conversation between herself and Yohji Yamamoto, that begun her tenure as his Parisian creative consultant that continues to this day.

One of the great nieces of Trotsky and a Cannes-born daughter of Russian emigres, Silvagni was educated in London and continues to live in Paris – a city she has known for over 30 years in fashion, as one of the 20th century’s most respected fashion editors. Passing through the halls of Mademoiselle, Elle, American and French Vogue, this subtle yet driven woman has been pivotal in the careers of photographers such as Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel and Ellen von Unwerth as she ushered in a new wave of talent in the early 1990s.

While working with Yohji, Irène’s work has had a quieter yet equally powerful impact in the world of fashion, acting as Yamamoto’s European advisor, consulting on both commercial and artistic levels as an eye and ear in key markets. Choosing a single designer with which to work seems like it may have been an abrupt narrowing of field for a woman such as Silvagni, yet her own words seem on the contrary, ‘I said I would use my eye until it proved me wrong. Until now, I’m pretty sure it didn’t betray me,’ and she tells how on a personal level she relates to Yohji and his aesthetic - ’I like the gypsy life, it’s in my background. I like the colours, the jewellery, the printed fabrics, I like ethnic clothes … I could live in a tent if I had my family around me. I’m sincere. It’s not a fabricated personality.’

Accompanying Irène’s words are sweeping images by Italian photographer Ferdinando Scianna of Magnum Photos,  featuring a troupe of young boys playing in a wide green field. A bucolic scene of freedom and bohemian, natural beauty.