Mr. Yamamoto offered his menswear invitation as a broadsheet newspaper with red print for AW12-13, as though he was asking the world to sit up and read all about it. Upon entering his Rue. St Martin studio and show space in Paris, a chaos of green and yellow stripes across the floorboards followed the graphic theme and framed a coat-heavy collection highlighted with rich winter hues. Amidst a study of full-cut jackets and loose coats in soft checks, quirky details included contrasting double lapels, military appliques or unexpected pops of vibrant colour on leather boots and silken pyjamas. Once again the designer’s cross-generational casting lent an eclectic and reverent air to his presentation. A series of blanket-stitched ponchos worn over grey suiting closed the show, and felt like a feather in the cap of the designer’s ephemeral bohemian mythology.

Photography by Reto Schmid.

On the eve of the Spring Summer 2012 mens shows in Paris, we present an interview with one of the greats on the calendar, the legendary Yohji Yamamoto. In discussion with A BLOG contributor Filep Motwary, Yohji muses on his new book ‘My Dear Bomb’, his exhibitions in London, and the qualities of a ‘Yohji’ man.

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Filep Motwary: What made you decide to share the most intimate parts of your life and career with the world?
Yohji Yamamoto: It is not literally a biography. It is a mix of novel, documentary, essay, confession and lying. It’s more about direct emotion than historical information. A Belgian publisher, Ludion, contacted us to make a book. But it was also a coincidence. I was looking for something. After the terrible events last year, which also touched my company, I became stronger and I thought that I could do much more than fashion. To create clothes, I need emotion.

FM: You don’t see this book as an epilogue, I’m sure.
YY: It is the beginning of a new chapter. I hate the retrospective attitude. I am always standing here and now. It all came together very spontaneously. We had casual conversations, four or five times, sometimes a short one over a cup of coffee, sometime a long one for over eight hours. I spoke and she wrote.I decided to write with a co-author because I don’t have the time to write myself. Writing requires a great deal of time and concentration. Also, I cannot often find the words that express my true feelings;I only find it in someone else’s words that are inspiring or that share the same vocabulary. The Japanese writer Ango Sakaguchi, and his essays A Discourse on Decadence (Zoku darakuron) and A Personal View of Japanese Culture (Nihon bunka shikan), is one.

FM: You called your book ‘My Dear Bomb’. Why?
YY: My feelings are always ambivalent – towards life, time and women. Fundamentally, it is my way of being. I have had a constant magma inside me for a long time. I was the only son of a war widow. The fundamental inequality… the bomb can signify many things, depending on the moment. Sometimes anger, sometimes resignation, sometimes resentment… One day, I found an essay in a newspaper about the work of Sakaguchi. This inspired me and I started to read his complete works. The passage that struck me the most is in his essay A Discourse on Decadence, from 1946. I felt a huge resonance between Ango’s words and my own feelings.The anger, the resignation, the resentment… I had been keeping them deep in my heart since I was three or four. It tells the story of an encounter of two souls, a soul of solitude and a soul of decadence, who are always close to the fundamental sadness, the inequalities and the injustices of human existence, and to the doubt of existence itself, which accompanies one all one’s life.
I felt as if all of a sudden, Sakaguchi’s words pulled up a bomb from deep within my heart – My Dear Bomb – and put it right in front of my eyes. Here is the passage, from Part III, A Discourse on Decadence:

“Though I call for Japan’s fall into decadence, I mean precisely the opposite. Today Japan and its modes of thought have sunk deep into a great decadence, and we must twist free of the so-called “wholesome morals”, sharped as they are by the idiosyncratic cerebral machinations left over from the feudal era. We must then stand naked on the cast plains of truth. It is by falling away from the “wholesome morals” that we must recover our true humanity.
We must peel off the many kimonos that disguise our true nature – the emperor system, the bushido code of the samurai, the spirit of austerity, the naked, we must set off once again – this time as true human beings. Otherwise, will we not simply revert to a nation like that of old, a nation based on deceptions? Let us first strip ourselves naked, discard the taboos that bind us, and seek our true voice. May widows find love again – and plunge into hell because of it! May repatriated soldiers set up shop in the black market! Decadence itself is a bad thing, of course, but how are we to grasp the truth about ourselves if we do not put something on the line? To offer only superficial niceties and expect to be rewarded with truth is unreasonable. We must risk our very own flesh and blood; we must be willing to wail for truth. When a fall into decadence is called for, let us fall straight and let us fall hard. Let all morals dissipate, let confusion reign. Let the blood flow, let the poison course through our veins.
Only after we have first passed through the gates of hell might we claw our way into the heavens. With every fingernail, every toenail, covered in blood and torn from its place, we will inch our way towards the heavens. Is there any other way?
Decadence is, in and of itself, always a trifling, undesirable thing, but it does exhibit in an irrefutable manner a great truth about the human condition: each of us is alone.In other words, to be decadent is, always, to stand alone, to be abandoned by others, to be forsaken by parents. To be decadent is to accept a destiny where we have no choice but to stand on our own two feet. Being good puts us in a conformable position, one that allows us to rest easy in the empty values and conventions shared by our families and the human race. It allows us to surrender ourselves, body and soul, to the social system and go to our graves peacefully. But he who pursues decadence is inevitably cast out of this circle to walk the desolate plains alone. Evil is a petty pursuit, but the solitude it brings is a path leading to the gods. The following lines express precisely the same idea: “The good person attains birth in the Pure Land; how much more so the evil one.”
We see it again in Jesus as he prostrated himself at the feet of prostitutes. This act of respect was surely an acknowledgment of the fact that these women, too, travelled the desolate plain alone. Though there are thousands – no, millions – whose decadence did not deliver them to heaven and left them instead wandering forlornly in hell, this does not change the fact that it is this road alone that may lead to salvation.Alas, herein lies the sad truth of human nature. Indeed, sad though it may be, this fact of human nature will until the end of time remain impervious to changes in social structures and political systems.

[from Literary Mischief: Sakaguchi Ango, Culture, and the War; trans. James Dorsey)

FM: So has looking back to your past been an emotional experience?
YY: I hate looking back. That is why most of this book is not about the past, but about now.

FM: For me, your work is about the embrace of the human body, but not in a body-conscious way. How would you describe your clothes?
YY: Your question already answers itself. If I have to say something about my work, it is that I have always been provocative and anti-mode. I prefer being out of fashion, away from trends.

FM: The V&A is presenting a major exhibition of your work. What does the exhibition do for a visitor?
YY:I really don’t know. I hope that young people, and not only art-school students, are going to visit it.

FM: What will they see?
YY: They will find that I am a genius.

FM: What is the process of developing a collection like for you?
YY: The only thing I do differently from other designers of today is that I’m always thinking that after I show my collection, I want to sell it too. So it’s not only promotion.

FM: Your shows are so intimate, but in the past, the way you presented your clothes was a bit more theatrical. Why?
YY: In the past, I was always following a feeling that was against fashion or trend. Clearly, I was always against common sense. My tendency is always against, against, against.

FM: Do you feel menswear is going through an interesting period?
YY: Do you think so? For me, it looks like the menswear market is down and flat. My men’s line has always been for men who do not wear a tie – businessmen.

FM: Is the Yohji man connected with the martial arts, like you are with karate?
YY: Imagine you are a 70-year-old man and you get a threat from a young man at the corner of the metro station. Are you going to give him your wallet? Men should be men forever.

FM: What do you admire in a man?
YY: I love men who keep a child’s mind no matter how old they are.

FM: Are you a dreamer?
YY: I am a natural-born optimist.

FM: What is your greatest achievement so far?
YY: The changes in the fashion industry, I feel that they’re my fault. I cannot change the world. I’ve been a little lazy… I should have known a little more about the market. It’s like a film director getting old; he cannot see his audience any more. All I can do is keep sending the same message: I’m here, I don’t want to go downmarket. I am an animal making clothes. My body reacts when I see the clothes.

FM: Mr Yamamoto,you have served fashion for four decades. How do you see it evolving in the future?
YY: Selecting one outfit means seducing your life. Looking at the fashion market over that time, it looks so flat.

FM: What have been the most defining – and difficult – moments of your career?
YY: When I was nearly 50 years old, after almost10 years in Paris, people started calling me a “master”. At that moment, I was like a lost child. That was a very tough moment.

FM: Why has your label become so successful?
YY: I do not push my customers to be perfectly fashionable. This is very important. The success of fashion comes from both creator and customer.

FM: What inspired your men’s collection for summer 2011?
YY: One of the inspirations came from traditional European textiles. Wallpaper, decoration and embroidery… and 18th-century menswear’s gloriously dressy past. I find current fashion is too American. It’s T-shirts and shorts all the time. I think we need some proper elegance to enhance the atmosphere a bit.

FM: What other forms of creation interest you?
YY: Painting. I had some training as a painter when I was young. Painting has two meanings. One: no deadline, and two: I can do it by myself, no need for anyone else. Finally, I can take all the responsibility. For a fashion business, what we call a “company” is very far from that, and I don’t want to be a slave to la mode. The rhythm of the fashion schedule is a jail.

FM: Who are your favorite artists?
YY: Wim Wenders, Bob Dylan, Pina Bausch, August Sander, Man Ray, Bartabas, Takeshi Kitano, Ango Sakaguchi, Heiner Müller, Andy Warhol, Picasso, Klimt.

FM: How can art be linked to fashion in your opinion?
YY: As I say in my book: “Fashion among all the arts expresses the most delicate elements of sensibility. I have no stomach for fads like the art complex that was recently so popular. Museums are even worse. No designer really wants his clothes displayed in one. They are where fashion goes to die. It is the same with retrospectives – I will have no part of them, either.”

FM: You once said, “If you are not waking up what’s asleep, you might as well stay on the beaten path.”
YY: “To achieve anti-fashion through fashion”: this is the core of my creative attitude. In the late 1990s, when I had a lot of offers to be the designer at haute couture maisons, frankly, I had no interest in it. To say it again, I was the only son of a war widow. This fundamental inequality is the universal law. I also write about this in my book:
“A persimmon tree bears persimmons. Not all among them will grow and ripen. Some are damned, existing only to nourish the blessed, chosen persimmons. Such is the universal rhythm that controls us all, each and every thing in the universe.” And I always feel sympathy with the outsiders.
Again from my book: “To rebel against the world’s various authorities, systems and regimes is to assume consistently the position of a minority. Somewhere along the line my sympathies were drawn to these minorities, those people on the side of resistance. These marginalised individuals did not choose the conditions into which they were born; they live trapped in the most basic human inequities and they face injustices that cannot be rationalised. When we forget that these conditions exist, we will be unable to touch people’s souls in our attempts to create the novel and unique. People will remain unmoved.”

FM: What else can we expect from Yohji Yamamoto in 2011?
YY: Will I be there in 2011? Let’s hope!

My Dear Bomb by Yohji Yamamoto is published by Ludion.
Yohji Yamamoto at the V&A is at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, from 12 March-10 July.

This interview was originally published in the Spring Summer 2011 issue of Dapper Dan magazine.

On the exciting occasion of Yohji Yamamoto’s Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition and installations in collaboration with the Wapping Project, A BLOG contributor Felicity Shaw spoke to V&A curator Ligaya Salazar. The three-part exhibition sits in both East and West London, with a rare and exciting collection of iconic garments and installations that present a veritable ‘Yohji-fying’ of the British capital!

Felicity Shaw: Japanese fashion has become increasingly popular, with many exhibitions taking place over the last few years, most recently the ‘30 years of Japanese fashion’ at the Barbican. Why do you think this is?

Ligaya Salazar: The simple answer would be that 2011 is a big anniversary of the arrival of Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo in Paris in 1981, but I think it is probably more complex. Designs by Yohji Yamamoto have been featured over twenty times in exhibitions since 1983 both as part of thematic exhibitions as well as three previous retrospectives. Yamamoto’s work has influenced fashion as a whole greatly and it is this influence that museums and art institutions are acknowledging.

FS: Why do you think Yohji is so successful in his collaborative work?

LS: Yohji Yamamoto said to me that he always leaves 5-10% of his design unfinished or open. This leaves a small part of his design open to interpretation by the photographer, the press, the customer or the curator. I believe it is this approach that makes his collaborations so interesting.

FS: How does this exhibition interact with the Wapping Bankside & Project installations?

LS: The V&A exhibition is the central and largest part of the project. It is really where people can see the breadth of Yohji Yamamoto’s womenswear and menswear from the last 30 years, the encounter of his work with the museum’s historic collections and the wider context of his work as for example his collaborations with filmmakers and choreographers. The Wapping Project installation provides an opportunity for visitors to experience one of Yamamoto’s oversized pieces one to one and the Bankside exhibition shows a selection of the great photographic output that Yamamoto has enabled through his wonderful catalogues.

FS: Yohji Yamamoto stated that ‘fabric is everything’. How did you work to display these beautiful fabrics in the best way?

LS: The most important aspect of this exhibition is that all garments are on open display and visitors are allowed to walk amongst them as equals. This way people can appreciate the intricacies of the fabrics as they can get up close to them.

FS: Why do you think that Yohji’s designs continue to feel fresh after 30 years?

LS: Yohji Yamamoto designs clothes to last, from the choice of fabric up to the details of his designs. Therefore, even the pieces from the 1980s do not feel dated at all.

FS: What makes this exhibition different to previous exhibitions representing Japanese design?

LS: This exhibition is about Yohji Yamamoto’s design and it really tries to represent his design aesthetic. It is also conceived as an encounter with the V&A, so is therefore very site-specific.

FS: Can you talk a little about your research preparations? How did you prepare for an exhibition this size?

LS: When I started working on this exhibition 2.5 years ago, I began talking to the Yamamoto team very regularly about the ideas for the exhibition and simultaneously started reading everything ever published on him. After this I began working on the publication and the pre-selection of the garments, followed by the design process with his long-term collaborator and lighting director Masao Nihei. Of course, there are many more steps that are part of this process, but perhaps too many to describe in a brief paragraph.

FS: I read that the working process behind creating such a large scale exhibition took 2 years. What has been your favourite stage of the journey?

LS: There were many aspects of the preparation I really enjoyed, but perhaps the most special moment was to go through his archives in both France and Tokyo to do the pre-selection. Particularly as his menswear was never shown before, it was amazing to be able to go through all of them.

FS: You have been at the V&A for 5 years now – what has been your favourite project to curate?

LS: That is a difficult question as each project is enjoyable for different reasons, especially as the scale and length differ so greatly from one to the next. The Yohji Yamamoto exhibition, however, is definitely amongst my favourites.

Read more exhibition details here

Interview by Felicity Shaw, London.
With thanks to Ligaya Salazar, Alice Evans & Coralie Gauthier.

The life and designs of Japanese fashion maverick Yohji Yamamoto will, this spring, be celebrated through a series of retrospective exhibitions and installations in London. His avant-garde, visionary style and signature over-sizing have created new silhouettes which continue to influence and shape fashion today. For over forty years, Yamamoto has challenged conventional norms of clothing with a multitude of innovative runway shows and exclusive collaborations with brands such as Adidas and Hermes.

First stop in the programme is his first major solo show in the UK; “Yohji Yamamoto” at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Over 80 women’s and menswear garments will be on display throughout the museum in a series of installations which trace the designer’s progression and highlight his most memorable and representative work. To accompany this, the Wapping Project will also house Yamamoto’s extraordinary wedding dress in white silk with a bamboo crinoline from the 1998 A/W collection, in the exciting and metaphorical installation “Yohji Making Waves”.

And to top it off, the third project manifests itself as a photographic exhibition entitled “Yohji’s Women”, containing images from throughout his career, as captured by iconic photographers Nick Knight, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, Craig McDean and Paolo Roversi amongst others. The photographs celebrate the strength, independence and expressive qualities of the women that Yohji dresses.

I/ Victoria and Albert Museum: “Yohji Yamamoto” 12 March – 10 July 2011
II/ The Wapping Project: “Yohji Making Waves’” 12 March – 10 July 2011
III/ The Wapping Project (Bankside): “Yohji’s Women” 12 March -14 May 2011

Text by Felicity Shaw, London.

Graphic knits met 3-piece suiting, paperbag trousers were worn with Air Jordan-like sneakers, and a finale of crushed velvet gowns came emblazoned with vintage pin-up girls. Snow white crows encircled coats in sombre black and a deep emerald green, while cherries and skeletons played across heavy black knitwear (one portly gentleman wore a red apple over his heart). Tailoring seemed rough-hewn, and sometimes came patched in multiple tweeds, while military coats were strapped across the chest and accented with patent red collars.

Walking to the mellow tones of UK vocalist Fink, Yohji’s men radiated a warm confidence and comfort in their stride – maybe due to the basketball sneakers, but also in deference to the light and emotive way that the designer plays with masculine codes of dress, arriving always at his signature junction of sartorial sobriety and personal good humour.

Yohji Yamamoto welcomed a rather raucous crowd of editors & buyers to his show amid the industrial surrounds of 7 Place Vendôme on Thursday evening, albeit all eager to escape the soaking rain that has plagued much of the week. Elevating a pale blue stab of catwalk through the grey hall, Yohji (ever the pragmatist) allowed even his 5th row a suitable position to view the Spring Summer 2011 collection (shoes and all) with ease.

Opening the rather tardy parade with a direct onslaught of black on black layers in starchy poplin, jersey & gauzy silks, Yohji carved his fabrics away from the shoulders & hips with sharp incisions – as textures burst out from one another with delicious asymmetry.

From combat boots to flip-flops, Yohji loosened the apron strings of his first 19th century looks to embrace the bohemian, gradually introducing a psychadelic swirl of rainbow prints in leggings, bodysuits and finally full floaty sundresses. Several models’ wore their matted hair gathered up in hollow boater hats, perched above their powdery white faces like bird-nests. A particularly beautiful styling point was made with rainbow or white shawls lined with silvery tassels wound in and out of belts, skirts and tops – in a play of restriction with the volumes of floating fabrics.

His final silhouette rounded out the light-hearted spirit of the parade (scored with an alternating mix of Purple Haze & Ave Maria) with a punch, as a simple slogan tee shirt read a distorted repitition of  “THIS IS ME THIS IS ME THIS IS ME THIS IS ME”. Paired with a bright yellow A-line skirt flaring out in a bizarre inflatable fabric, it seemed a bold statement – that the master of black is doing it his way, and he’s still enjoying it.

We are very pleased to announce that the first ever published biography of Yohji Yamamoto will be released worldwide in October 2010. Yohji Yamamoto has been always considered as one of the most charismatic, enigmatic and mysterious fashion designers. His words have the reputation to be radical, yet subtle.

This book will allow us to come as close as possible to the man ‘Yohji’, a complex and unique person, who has been playing the same song in different arrangements since his debut decades ago, until today. He is well known to be against any retrospective point of view. And so does his biography. It will catch ‘Yohji today’, not with the ordinary chronological method, but with radical short fiction mostly based on his live voice, accompanied by some vivid flashbacks of his key moments.

Deeper than ever before, we will surely witness the core of ‘Yohji’ as a human being, next to being a fashion designer. The book will continue to express his sincere wish to pass onto the younger generations his unique savoir-faire. Based upon decades of personal experience, Yohji will give a rich and contextualized description, with images on subjects as fabrics, volume, silhouette, pockets, etc. – showing how his unique techniques are deeply related and blended with his philosophy of life. Naturally, it is the secret root of his mysterious creative process.

The book will conclude with a year to year biography, illustrated by rare and personal images,
which will share his vision of his personal key moments.

www.yohjiyamamoto.co.jp

Upon receiving a plastic white bow-tie as the invitation for the Yohji Yamamoto show, one could expect a certain grandeur was afoot – whether as tacky as the fabric or as whimsical as the idea of this historical neckpiece. Under the glare of their showroom lights in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, Yohji proved the latter, delivering a period story of formalwear with all the pomp and ceremony of an Edwardian court.

Opening in heavy brocade tailcoats, powdered faces and tightly-pinned curls, Yohji’s men were European gentleman of the highest calibre. Pilgrim and Celtic references abounded, with delicate heraldic embroidery adorning jackets and knee-length polo shirts, and high felted hats and buckled shoes. Revelling in layers of fine suiting textiles, each look toed a fine line of modernity and historical costume – with waistcoats trimmed in jersey, plimsolls covered with floral brocade and punched brogues closed with a zip.

Breaking away from the common thread of monochromes, Yohji explored a broad palette of deep colour and embroideries, from burnt orange to turquoise cotton suiting, burgundy florals and ticking striped charcoals. Classically slim tailcoats were blown out to Yohji’s oversized proportions, worn over intricate shirting that cut away like waistcoat tails, with high peaked collars and the invitation’s loosely tied bow.

Evoking a dandy’s elegance, the show was a fresh step of spring air for the master of black, with a contemporary mix of sports elements that kept a relevance to the antiquated costumes. Without breaking new ground, Yohji gave us a timely reminder of the playful spirit that lies at the heart of his work – a rogue air that crosses time and geography to tell his eccentric story.

To view the full collection, please click here.

Returning to the early days of a fashion designer’s work is an interesting exercise that maps an intellectual and aesthetic journey, an evolution of means and commercial motives, and a general progression with the times. For A#2′s Yohji Yamamoto this has been a long road, as he began showing in Paris over two decades ago in 1981.

Crowned the master of black, Yohji was a revolutionary who interpreted classical European tailoring into a new and exciting silhouette, falling with a new exaggerated  volume and asymmetric cut. With a loose androgyny, Yohji introduced a generation to a comfortable luxury built on draping and texture, crisp whites contrasting inky black and rare bursts of bold colour.

Through the years, Yohji has not wavered from his vision, despite the dramatic changes in mainstream style and within the work of other designers. As the images below illustrate, elements of his work can be seen following through many collections, from the earliest images we have from 1983, all the way through to his most recent show. From a polished lace-up shoe to a flowing white shirt, his signature is unmistakeable, and his legacy an inspiration to many as a benchmark of fine craftsmanship and a sensual approach to avant-garde fashion.

All images, rights reserved, Yohji Yamamoto.

Above: Yohji Yamamoto Spring Summer 1983

Above: Yohji Yamamoto Spring Summer 1985

Above: Yohji Yamamoto Spring Summer 1989

Above: Yohji Yamamoto Fall Winter 1988-99

Above: Yohji Yamamoto Spring Summer 1990

“Marc would enter your head,
like a voice that distorts,
like a mirror that forces you
to look at yourself differently.”

-Nick Knight

Creative director Marc Ascoli spent over 10 years at the helm of Yohji Yamamoto’s label, shaping the aesthetic vision of the company through creative collaborations that produced iconic and beautiful imagery since 1984. Working with some of the industry’s leading photographers and pushing their skill and vision to its most avant-garde, Marc has effectively channeled the intangible charisma and spark of Yohji into a commercially viable image that remained aspirational and mysterious.

Marc Ascoli is now the creative director of Martine Sitbon’s Rue du Mail.