Yohji Yamamoto Men's Fall 2019 – Paris Fashion Week

(Images from Vogue.com and wwd.com the public domain. All rights. Used in promotion of the designer.)

As noted of my show reviews and coverage of the 2018 seasons, the militaristic and mountaineering styles was one of the mainstay trends of 2018. Yohji Yamamoto has encapsulated the post military styles and weaved it together for his Fall 2019 collection. At times he has offered a more darkened version of his stylized romanticism – with all their tragic and sober overtones. While at the same time beautifully and expertly crafted under Yamamoto's mastery.

This is Yamamoto's intensified take on the uniformity of military attire, yet it feels also similar to the early 1980s styles of UK designers and Japanese as they descended on Paris and reworked couture, primarily because of the influences of Punk, which could be seen as duplication of causal factors that originated, ironically, from the French Situantionists avant garde art moment of the 1950s and early 1970s, American garage rock styles ala the mid 70s band “Richard Hell and the Voidoids” and Malcolm Maclaren and Vivienne Westwood who were able to draw in all the mentioned trends in its defining of 1977 UK punk styles. But, with the punk overtures clearly evident, as mentioned, Yamamoto said that he studied military looks for this collection and you see how he has fused the idealism of uniform with rebellion – into an awkward, and in Yamamoto's words “chaotic” consolidation, yet it works. 

Mostly dulled blacks, infused with dark blues with gray inlays and pattern designs. It is all jammed together with fine wool, loose styled stitching, unpicked distressed looks reminiscent of the homogeneous Avant-garde clothing trend of the last ten years. Worn styles which are cast onto draped ensembles. It looks war-torn and weather beaten. Large gun-metal gray buttons with engraved imagery of animals of prey, topped with scorpions and skulls. While at the same time it still holds a dignity, maybe even a honor that the wearer has weathered the storm. So, for me it does exude a tough representation of clothing, designed as a portrayal of going through hell and making it to the other side, for there is only the new dawn. The scars remain.

And it is now, that we may rest and be at peace.